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EDUCATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

VOLUME  I 

THE 
ORIGINAL  NATURE  OF  MAN 


BY 

EDWARD  L.  THORNDIKE 

PROFESSOR  OF  EDUCATIONAL  PSYCHOLOGY  IN  TEACHERS  COLLEGE 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


PUBLISHED  BT 

Veic^CTf  GoIIeer,  Columbia  Qnibnfit; 

NEW  YORK 

1913 


2883 


Copyright  1913,  By 
EDWARD  L.  THORNDIKE 


7  1  i**  f-* 


The  MASON-HBNRY  Preii 
Syraoaie  and  New  York 


College 
Library 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 
WILLIAM  JAMES 


PREFACE 

This  volume,  which  describes  man's  original  mental  equip- 
ment— the  inherited  foundations  of  intellect,  morals  and  skill, — 
is  the  first  of  three,  which,  together,  give  the  main  facts  of 
educational  psychology.  The  second  volume,  on  The  Psychol- 
ogy of  Learning,  treats  of  the  laws  of  learning  in  general,  the 
improvement  of  mental  functions  by  practice  and  their  deterior- 
ation by  fatigue.  The  third  volume,  on  Individual  Differences 
and  Their  Causes,  treats  of  the  variations  of  individual  men 
around  the  general  type  characteristic  of  man  as  a  species,  and  of 
the  influence  of  sex,  race,  immediate  ancestry,  maturity  and  train- 
ing in  producing  these  variations.  This  third  volume  was  written 
first,  appearing  in  1903  under  the  general  title.  Educational 
Psychology, 

A  systematic  account  of  present  knowledge  of  the  dynamics 
of  human  nature  and  behavior  is  much  needed  for  students  of 
education  and  other  forms  of  human  control.  These  volumes 
represent  a  selection  from,  and  organization  of,  recent  work  in 
experimental,  statistical  and  comparative  psychology,  such  as 
will,  I  hope,  economize  effort  and  diminish  the  chances  of  error 
for  such  students. 

The  reader  to  whom  these  volumes  bring  any  new  insight  into 
human  nature,  power  in  the  quantitative  treatment  of  mental  facts, 
or  interest  in  the  rich  details  of  concrete  human  nature,  will  be- 
come a  sharer  in  my  debt  to  my  teachers,  William  James  and 
James  McKeen  Cattell,  and  to  that  intrepid  devotee  to  concrete 
human  nature,  Stanley  Hall,  whose  doctrines  I  often  attack,  but 
whose  genius  I  always  admire. 

Parts  of  Chapters  I,  II,  VII,  IX,  X  and  KVII  of  this  volume 
constituted  four  lectures  given  at  Union  College  in  March,  1913, 
under  the  provisions  of  the  Ichabod  Spencer  Foundation. 

Teachers  College,  Columbia  University, 
March,  191 3 


CONTENTS 


Chaptkr  Pags 

\j    I.     Introduction   i 

Original  versus  Learned  Tendencies 
The  Problems  of  Original  Nature 

J 

II.    General  Characteristics  of  Original  Tendencies      5 
Names  for  Original  Tendencies 
The  Components  of  an  Original  Tendency 
The  Action  of  Original  Tendencies 
Stages  in  the  Description  of  Human  Nature 


J. 


s 


ni     Inventories  OF  THE  Original  Nature  OF  Man.  .. .     16 

James'  Inventory 

Indefiniteness  in  Descriptions  of  Original  Ten- 
dencies 

Criteria  of  the  Probable  Unlearnedness  of  a  Ten- 
dency 

IV.     Sources  of  Information 27 

The  Discovery  of  Original  Tendencies  by  Syste- 
matic Observation  of  Children 

The  Discovery  of  Original  Tendencies  by  a  Cen- 
sus of  Opinions 

Other  Sources 

The  Insecurity  of  Present  Information 

\ 
V.     Responses  of  Sensitivity,  Attention  and  Gross 

Bodily  Control 43 

Sensory  Capacities 

Original  Attentiveness 

Gross  Bodily  Control 

VI.     Food  Getting,  Protective  Responses,  and  Anger  . .     50 
Food  Getting 


X  CONTENTS 

Cbaptbk  Pack 

Habitation 
Fear 
Fighting 
Anger 

VII.    Responses  to  the  Behavior  of  Other  Human 

Beings 8i 

Motherly  Behavior 

Responses  to  the  Presence,  Approval  and  Scorn 

of  Men 
Mastering  and  Submissive  Behavior 
Other  Social  Instincts 

VIII.     Responses  to  the  Behavior  of  Other  Human 

Beings  :  Imitation  io8 

General  Imitativene^ 

The  Imitation  of  Particular  Forms  of  Behavior 

IX.    Original  Satisfiers  and  Annoyers 123 

The    Original    Nature    of   Wants,  Interests  and 

Motives 
The  Principles  of  Readiness 
The  Explanation  of  'Multiple  Response'  or  'Varied 

Reaction' 

X.    Tendencies  to  Minor   Bodily   Movements   and 

Cerebral  Connections 135 

Vocalization,  Visual  Exploration  and  Manipula- 
tion 
Other  Possible  Specializations 
Curiosity  and  Mental  Control 
Play 
'Random'  Movements 

XI.    The  Emotions  AND  Their  Expression 150 

Difficulties   in   Identifying   and    Studying   Emo- 
tional States 
McDougall's  Inventory  of  Original  Tendencies 
to  Emotional  States 


CONTENTS  XI 

Chaptsx  Paok 

The   Relation   of   Emotions   to  the   Movements 

which  "Express"  Them 
The  Original  Bonds  of  the  Expressive  Movements 

^^11.    Consciousness,  Learning  and  Remembering 170 

Original  Tendencies  to  Consciousness 

The  Capacity  to  Learn 

Limitations  to  Modifiability 

The    Supposed    Formation    of    Connections    by 

"Faculties" 
The  Supposed  Formation  of  Connections  by  the 

Perception  of  Their  Action  in  Another 
The  Supposed  Formation  of  Connections  by  the 

Power  of  an  Idea  to  Produce  the  Act  which 

it  Represents  ^ 

Attempted  Explanations  of  Learning  by  the  Laws 

of  Exercise  Alone  ^ 

Remembering 

Xin.     Summary,  Criticism  and  Classification 195 

The  Action  of  Fragments  and  Combinations  of 

Original  Tendencies 
The  Variability  of  Men  in  Origfinal  Tendencies 
The  Modifiability  of  Original  Tendencies 
A  Summary  of  Man's  Original  Nature 
Criticisms 
The  Classification  of  Original  Tendencies 

XIV.    The  Anatomy  and  Physiology  of  Original  Ten- 
dencies    209 

The  Structure  of  the  Neurones 

The  Arrangement  of  the  Neurones 

Sensitivity  and  Conductivity 

The  Physiology  of  the  Capacity  to  Learn  and  of 

Readiness 
The  Physiology  of  Delay  and  Transitoriness  in 
^  Original  Tendencies 

XV.    The  Source  of  Original  Tendencies 230 

The  Hypothesis  of  the  Transmission  of  Acquired 
Traits 


/. 


Xii  CONTENTS 

CsArrsx  Pags 

The  Selection  of  'Chance'  Variations  in  the  Germ 

Plasm 
The  Continuity  of  Original  Tendencies 
The  Extent    of    Selection    for    Intellectual    and 

Moral  Superiority 

XVI.    The  Order  and  Dates  of  Appearance  and  Dis- 
appearance OF  Original  Tendencies 245 

The  Recapitulation  Theory 
The  Utility  Theory 
The  Evidence 

The  Dates   of   Appearance   of    Particular    Ten- 
dencies 
The  Gradual  Waxing  of  Delayed  Instincts  and 
'  Capacities 

The  Probable    Frequency    of    Transitoriness    in 
Original  Tendencies 


XVII.  The  Value  and  Use  of  Original  Tendencies 270 

The  Doctrine  of  Nature's  Infallibility 

The  Doctrine  of  Catharsis 

Defects  in  Man's  Original  Nature 

The  Use  of  Original  Tendencies  in  Detail 

Original  Tendencies  as  Ends:  Emulation  in  the 

Case  of  School  'Marks' 
Original   Tendencies   as   Means:    Suggestion   in 

Education 
Original  versus  'Natural'  Tendencies 
The  Importance  of  the  Original  Satisfiers  and 

Annoyers 
The  True  Significance  of  Plasticity 
Which  Instincts  are  of  Most  Worth 
Original    Nature    the    Ultimate    Source   of    All 

Values 

Bibliography  of  References  Made  in  the  Text 313 

Index  320 


The  Original  Nature  of  Man 

tHAi'ff.K    I 

Introduction 

The  arts  and  sciences  serve  human  welfare  by  helping 
man  to  change  the  world,  including  man  himself,  for  the  better. 
The  word  edugatign  refers  especially  to  those  elements  of  sci- 
ence and  art.which  are  concerned  with  chagg^  in  man  himself. 
Wisdom  and  economy  in  improving  man  s  wants  and  in  making 
him  better  able  to  satisfy  them  depend  upon  knowledge — ^first, 
of  what  his  nature  is,  apart  from  education,  and  second,  of 
the  laws  which  govern  changes  in  it.  It  is  the  province  of 
educational  psychology  to  give  such  knowledge  of  the  original 
nature  of  man  and  of  the  laws  of  modifiability  or  learning,  in 
the  case  of  intellect,  character  and  skill. 

A  man's  nature  and  the  changes  that  take  place  in  it  may 
be  described  in  terms  of  the  responses — of  thought,  feeling, 
action  and  attitude — which  he  makes,  and  of  the  bonds  by 
which  these  are  connected  with  the  situations  which  life./offers. 
Any  fact  of  intellect,  character  or  skill  means  a  tendency  to 
respond  in  a  certain  way  to  a  certain  situation — involves  a 
situation  or  state  of  affairs  influencing  the  man,  a  response  or 
state  of  affairs  in  the  man,  and  a  connection  or  bond  whereby 
the  latter  is  the  result  of  the  former. 

ORIGINAL  versus  LEARNED  TENDENCIES 

Any  man  possesses  at  the  very  start  of  his  life — that  is,  at 
the  moment  when  the  ovum  and  spermatozoon  which  are  to 
produce  him  have  united — numerous  well-defined  tendencies 
I  I 


2  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

to  future  behavior.*  Between  the  situations  which  he  will 
meet  and  the  responses  which  he  will  make  to  them,  pre-formed 
bonds  exist.  It  is  already  determined  by  the  constitution  of 
these  two  germs,  that  under  certain  circumstances  he  will  see 
and  hear  and  feel  and  act  in  certain  ways.  His  intellect  and 
morals,  as  well  as  his  bodily  organs  and  movements,,  are  in  part 
the  consequence  of  the  nature  of  the  embryo  in  the  first  moment 
of  its  life.  What  a  man  is  and  does  throughout  life  is  a  result 
of  whatever  constitution  he  has  at  the  start  and  of  all  the  forces 
that  act  upon  it  before  and  after  birth.  I  shall  use  the  term 
'original  nature'  for  the  former  and  'environment'  for  the 
latter.  His  original  nature  is  thus  a  name  for  the  nature  of 
the  combined  germ-cells  from  which  he  springs,  and  his  en- 
vironment is  a  name  for  the  rest  of  the  universe,  so  far  as  it 
may,  directly  or  indirectly,  influence  him. 

In  one  sense  nothing  in  human  nature  is  due  exclusively  to 
either  one  of  these  factors.  Those  tendencies  most  dependent 
on  the  original  nature  of  the  organism  require  certain  coopera- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  environment ;  and  those  most  dependent 
on  outside  circumstances  still  require  some  cooperation 
on  the  part  of  the  organism.  Even  the  first  splitting  of 
the  fertilized  ovum  into  two  cells  occurs  only  when  adequate 
stimuli,  for  instance  of  temperature,  act  ab  extra;  and  even  the 
death  of  the  organism  by  starvation  occurs  only,  its  date  at 
least,  in  accord  with  certain  responses  from  within. 

But  in  another  sense  the  most  fundamental  question  for 
human  education  asks  precisely  that  we  assign  separate  shares 
in  the  causation  of  human  behavior  to  man's  original  nature 
on  the  one  hand  and  his  environment  or  nurture  on  the  other. 


*Since  the  term,  behavior,  has  acquired  certain  technical  meanings  in  its 
use  by  psychologists,  and  since  it  will  be  frequently  used  in  this  book,  the 
meaning  which  will  be  attached  to  it  here  should  perhaps  be  stated.  I  use 
it  to  refer  to  those  activities  of  thought,  feeling,  and  conduct  in  the  broadest 
sense  which  an  animal — here,  man — exhibits,  which  are  omitted  from  dis- 
cussion by  the  physics,  chemistry  and  ordinary  physiology  of  today,  and 
which  are  referred  by  popular  usage  to  intellect,  character,  skill  and  tem- 
perament. Behavior,  then,  is  not  contrasted  with,  but  inclusive  of,  conscious 
life. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

In  this  sense  we  neglect,  or  take  for  granted,  the  cooperating 
action  of  one  of  the  two  divisions  in  order  to  think  more  success- 
fully and  conveniently  of  the  action  of  the  other.  Thus,  we 
say  that  man  is  by  his  original  nature  able  to  see,  but  that  what 
he  sees  depends  upon  the  environment  he  meets ;  or  that  original 
nature  makes  him  respond  to  certain  objects  by  fears,  which 
environmental  training  weakens;  or  that  a  child  instinctively 
conveys  food  to  his  mouth  with  the  naked  hand,  but  by  habit 
comes  to  use  a  spoon  as  well ;  or  that  native  curiosity  develops, 
by  proper  training,  into  interests  in  the  arts  and  sciences. 

The  custom  of  thus  abstracting  out  the  original  nature  of 
man  in  independence  of  any  and  all  influences  upon  it  is  so 
general  and  so  useful  that  it  is  best  to  follow  it  throughout, 
remembering,  however,  that  from  the  first  moments  after  the 
fertilization  of  the  ovum,  a  human  individual  is  always  an 
acquired  nature, — ^that  in  the  most  original  behavior  discover- 
able, such  as  breathing  or  suckling,  some  outside  conditions 
are  involved, — and  that  in  the  most  exclusively  acquired  or 
learned  arts,  such  as  knowledge  of  the  square  root  of  256,  some 
element  of  original  capacity  has  a  share. 

THE   PROBLEMS   OF   ORIGINAL   NATURE 

Elementary  psychology  acquaints  us  with  the  fact  that  men 
are,  apart  from  education,  equipped  with  tendencies  to  feel  and 
act  in  certain  ways  in  certain  circumstances — ^that  the  response 
to  be  made  to  a  situation  may  be  determined  by  man's  inborn 
organization.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  general  law  that,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  response  to  any  situation  will  be  that  which 
is  by  original  nature  connected  with  that  situation,  or  with 
some  situation  like  it.  Any  neurone  will,  when  sti\]i]i1a<-pd| 
transmit  the  stimulus,  other  things  being  equal,  to  the  neurone 
with  which  it  is  by  inborn  organization  most  closely  connected. 
The  basis  of  intellect  and  character  is  this  fund  of  unlearned 
tendencies,  this  original  arrangement  of  the  neurones  in  the 
brain. 

The  original  connections  may  develop  at  various  dates  and 


4  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

may  exist  for  only  limited  times;  their  waxing  and  waning 
may  be  sudden  or  gradual.  They  are  the  starting  point  for 
all  education  or  other  human  control.  The  aim  of  education 
is  to  perpetuate  some  of  them,  to  eliminate  some,  and  to  modify 
or  redirect  others.  They  are  perpetuated  by  providing  the 
stimuli  adequate  to  arouse  them  and  give  them  exercise,  and 
by  associating  satisfaction  with  their  action.  They  are  elim- 
inated by  withholding  these  stimuli  so  that  they  abort  through 
disuse,  or  by  associating  discomfort  with  their  action.  They 
are  redirected  by  substituting,  in  the  situation-connection-re- 
sponse series,  another  response  instead  of  the  undesirable 
original  one;  or  by  attaching  the  response  to  another  situation 
in  connection  with  which  it  works  less  or  no  harm,  or  even 
positive  good. 

It  is  a  first  principle  of  education  to  utilize  any  individual's 
original  nature  as  a  means  to  changing  him  for  the  better — 
to  produce  in  him  the  information,  habits,  powers,  interests 
and  ideals  which  are  desirable. 

The  behavior  of  man  in  the  family,  in  business,  in  the 
state,  in  religion  and  in  every  other  affair  of  life  is  rooted  in 
his  unlearned,  original  equipment  of  instincts  and  capacities. 
All  schemes  of  improving  human  life  must  take  account  of 
man's  original  nature,  most  of  all  when  their  aim  is  to  reverse 
or  counteract  it. 

A  study  of  the  original  nature  of  man  as  a  species  and  of 
the  original  natures  of  individual  men  is  therefore  the  primary 
task  of  human  psychology.  This  volume  is  concerned  with 
only  the  former  task.     The  main  topics  of  such  a  study  are : 

1 .  The  description  and  classification  of  original  tendencies, 

2.  Their  anatomy  and  physiology, 

3.  Their  source  or  origin, 

4.  The  order  and  dates  of  their  appearance  and  disap- 
pearance, and 

5.  Their  control  in  the  service  of  human  ideals. 


chapter  ii 
General  Characteristics  of  Original  Tendencies 

NAMES   for   original   TENDENCIES 

Three  terms,  reflexes,  instincts,  and  inborn  capacities,  di- 
vide the  work  of  naming  these  unlearned  tendencies.  When 
the  tendency  concerns  a  very  definite  and  uniform  response  to 
a  very  simple  sensory  situation,  and  when  the  connection  be- 
tween the  situation  arid  the  response  is  very  hard  to  modify 
and  is  also  very  strong  so  that  it  is  almost  inevitable,  the  con^ 
nection  or  response  to  which  it  leads  is  called  a  reflex.  Thus 
the  knee-jerk  is  a  very  definite  and  uniform  response  to  the 
simple  sense-stimulus  of  sudden  hard  pressure  against  a  cer- 
tain spot.  It  is  hard  to  lessen,  to  increase,  or  otherwise  control 
the  movement,  and,  given  the  situation,  the  response  almost 
always  comes.  When  the  response  is  more  indefinite,  the 
situation  more  complex,  and  the  connection  more  modifiable, 
instinct  becomes  the  customary  term.  Thus  one's  misery  at 
being  scorned  is  too  indefinite  a  response  to  too  complex  a  sit- 
uation and  is  too  easily  modifiable  to  be  called  a  reflex.  Wherf 
the  tendency  is  to  an  extremely  indefinite  response  or  set  of  re- 
sponses to  a  very  complex  situation,  and  when  the  connection's 
final  degree  of  strength  is  commonly  due  to  very  large  con- 
tributions from  training,  it  has  seemed  more  appropriate  to 
replace  reflex  and  instinct  by  some  term  like  capacity,  or  ten- 
dency, or  potentiality.  Thus  an  original  tendency  to  respond 
to  the  circumstances  of  school  education  by  achievement  in 
learning  the  arts  and  sciences  is  called  the  capacity  for  scholar- 
ship. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  gap  between  reflexes  and  instincts, 
or  between  instincts  and  the  still  less  easily  describable  original 
tendencies.  The  fact  is  that  original  tendencies  range  with  re- 
spect to  the  nature  of  the  responses  from  such  as  are  single, 

5 


O  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

simple,  definite,  uniform  within  the  individual  and  only  slightly 
variable  amongst  individuals,  to  responses  that  are  highly  com- 
pound, complex,  vague,  and  variable  within  one  individual's 
life  and  amongst  individuals.  They  range  with  respect  to  the 
nature  of  the  situation  from  simple  facts  like  temperature,  oxy- 
gen or  humidity,  to  very  complex  facts  like  'meeting  suddenly 
and  unexpectedly  a  large  animal  when  in  the  dark  without 
human  companions,'  and  include  extra-bodily,  bodily,  and  what 
would  be  commonly  called  purely  mental,  situations.  They 
range  with  respect  to  the  bond  or  connection  from  slight  modifi- 
ability  to  great  modifiability,  and  from  very  close  likeness 
amongst  individuals  to  fairly  wide  variability. 

Much  labor  has  been  spent  in  trying  to  make  hard  and  fast 
distinctions  between  reflexes  and  instincts  and  between  instincts 
and  these  vaguer  predispositions  which  are  here  called  capac- 
ities. It  is  more  useful  and  more  scientific  to  avoid  such  dis- 
tinctions in  thought,  since  in  fact  there  is  a  continuous  grada- 
tion. 

THE   COMPONENTS  OF   AN   ORIGINAL   TENDENCY 

A  typical  reflex,  or  instinct,  or  capacity,  as  a  whole,  includes 
the  ability  to  be  sensitive  to  a  certain  situation,  the  ability  to 
make  a  certain  response,  and  the  existence  of  a  bond  or  con- 
nection whereby  that  response  is  made  to  that  situation.  For 
instance,  the  young  chick  is  sensitive  to  the  absence  of  other 
members  of  his  species,  is  able  to  peep,  and  is  so  organized  that 
the  absence  of  other  members  of  the  species  makes  him  peep. 
But  the  tendency  to  be  sensitive  to  a  certain  situation  may  exist 
without  the  existence  of  a  connection  therewith  of  any  further 
exclusive  response,  and  the  tendency  to  make  a  certain  response 
may  exist  without  the  existence  of  a  connection  limiting  that 
response  exclusively  to  any  single  situation.  The  three-year- 
old  child  is  by  inborn  nature  markedly  sensitive  to  the  presence 
and  acts  of  other  human  beings,  but  the  exact  nature  of  his 
response  varies.  The  original  tendency  to  cry  is  very  strong, 
but  there  is  no  one  situation  to  which  it  is  exclusively  bound. 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS  7 

Original  nature  seems  to  decide  that  the  individual  will 
respond  somehow  to  certain  situations  more  often  than  it 
decides  just  what  he  will  do,  and  to  decide  that  he  will  make 
certain  responses  more  often  than  it  decides  just  when  he  will 
make  them.  So,  for  convenience  in  thinking  about  man's  un- 
learned equipment,  this  appearance  of  multiple  response  to  one 
same  situation  and  multiple  causation  of  one  same  response 
may  be  taken  roughly  as  the  fact. 

It  must  not,  however,  be  taken  to  mean  that  the  result  of  an 
action  set  up  in  the  sensory  neurones  by  a  situation  is  essen- 
tially unpredictable — that,  for  instance,  exactly  the  same  neur- 
one-action (paralleling,  let  us  say,  the  sight  of  a  dog  by  a 
certain  two-year-old  child)  may  lead,  in  the  two-year-old,  now 
to  the  act  of  crying,  at  another  time  to  shy  retreat,  at  another 
to  effusive  joy,  and  at  still  another  to  curious  examination  of 
the  newcomer,  all  regardless  of  any  modification  by  experience. 
On  the  contrary,  in  the  same  organism  the  same  neurone-action  "^  / 
will  always  produce  the  same  result — in  the  same  individual     V 

the  really  same  situation  will  always  produce  the  same  response^ ) 

The  apparent  existence  of  an  original  sensitivity  unconnected 
with  any  one  particular  response,  so  that  apparently  the  same 
cause  produces  different  results,  is  to  be  explained  in  pne  of 
two  ways.  First,  the  apparently  same  situations  may  really 
be  different.  Thus,  the  sight  of  a  dog  to  an  infant  in  its 
mother's  arms  is  not  the  same  situation  as  the  sight  of  a  dog  to 
an  infant  alone  on  the  doorstep.  Being  held  in  its  mother's 
arms  is  a  part  of  the  situation  that  may  account  for  the  response 
of  mild  curiosity  in  the  former  case  and  fear  in  the  latter. 
Second,  if  the  situations  are  really  identical,  the  apparently 
same  organism  really  differs,,  Thus  a  dog  seen  by  a  child, 
healthy,  rested  and  calm,  may  lead  to  only  airiosity,  whereas, 
if  seen  by  the  same  child,  ill,  fatigued,  and  nervously  irritable, 
it  may  lead  to  fear.  The  organism  may  differ  by  being  differ- 
ently disposed  in  its  sensory  apparatus,  in  its  associative  or 
connecting  apparatus,  in  its  motor  neurones,  in  its  muscular 
condition,  or  in  other  organs  concerned  in  the  response.     These 


8  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

predispositions  may  come  through  conditions  of  nutrition,  poi- 
soning, fatigue,  cooperative  stimulation,  etc.,  etc.* 

Similarly,  the  really  same  response  is  never  made  to  differ- 
ent situations  by  the  same  organism.  When  the  same  response 
seems  to  be  made  to  different  situations,  closer  inspection  wilt 
show  that  the  responses  do  differ;  or  that  the  situations  were, 
in  respect  to  the  element  that  determined  the  response,,  identical ; 
or  that  the  organism  is  itself  different.  Thus,  though  *a  ball 
seen,'  *a  tin  soldier  seen,'  and  *a  rattle  seen'  alike  provoke 
^reaching  for,'  the  total  responses  do  differ,  the  central  nervous 
system  being  provoked  to  three  different  responses  manifested 
as  three  different  sense-impressions — of  a  ball,  of  a  tin  soldier, 
and  of  a  rattle.  Thus,  if  'ball  grasped,'  'tin  soldier  grasped,' 
and  'rattle  grasped'  alike  provoke  'throwing,'  it  is  because 
only  one  particular  component,  common  to  the  three  situations, 
is  effective  in  determining  the  act.  Thus,  if  a  child  now  weeps 
whenever  spoken  to,  whereas  before  he  wept  only  when  hurt  or 
scolded,  it  is  because  he  is  now  exhausted,  excited,  or  otherwise 
changed. 

The  original  connections  between  situation  and  response  are 
never  due  to  chance  in  its  true  sense,  but  there  are  many  minor 
cooperating  forces  by  which  a  current  of  conduction  in  the 
same  sensory  neurones  or  receptors  may,  on  different  occasions, 
Hiverge  to  produce  different  results  in  behavior,  and  by  which 
very  different  sensory  stimulations  may  converge  to  a  substan- 
tially common  consequence. 

One  may  use  several  useful  abstract  schemes  by  which  to 
think  of  man's  original  equipment  of  reflexes,  instincts  and 
capacities.  Perhaps  the  most  convenient  is  a  series  of  S-R  con^ 
nections  of  three  types.  Some  are  of  the  type — Si  leads  to  Ri, 
its  peculiar  sequent ;  some  are  of  the  type — Si  leads  to  Ri  or  R2 
or  R3  or  R4  or  R5  etc.,  according  to  very  minor  casual  contribu- 
tory causes ;  some  are  of  the  type — Si  leads  to  R+ri,  S2  leads  to 

♦Their  most  potent  causes  are  the  effects  of  previous  experience,  but  these 
do  not  concern  the  present  inquiry,  since  all  effects  of  previous  experience  are, 
of  course,  to  be  rigorously  excluded  from  a  description  of  original  nature. 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS 


R+r2,  Ss  leads  to  R+rs  etc.,  where  Vi,  r2  and  r,  are  minor 
results. 

Graphically  this  scheme  is  represented  by  Fig^.  i,  2  and  3. 


Fig.  1.    S,. 


R, 

*i  -. 

/ 

Ri 

Ri 
R, 

,   A*'- 

fin 

^^^jV** 

s. 

Fig.  3.    ^ 

•v^^ 

— T. 

-n 

■»R 

s. 

..•vl*'" 

-r. 

s, 

—  r. 

Besides  such  a  system  of  tendencies  deciding  which  response 
any  given  situation  will  produce,  there  are  certain  tendencies 
that  decide'  the  status  of  features  common  to  all  situation-re- 
sponse connections.  There  is,  for  example,  in  man  an  original 
tendency  whereby  any  connection  once  made  tends,  other  things 
being  equal,  to  persist.  There  is  also  a  tendency  whereby  any 
connection  or  response  may  or  may  not  be  in  readiness  to  be 
made — may  be  excited  to  action  easily  or  with  difficulty. 
These  tendencies  toward  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  certain 
feature  in  all  connections  or  responses  will  be  examined  by 
themselves  in  due  time 

THE  ACTION  OF    ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES 

We  can  imagine  a  man's  life  so  arranged  that  one  after 
another  original  tendency  should  be  called  into  play,  each  by 
itself.  Let  him  be  in  a  certain  status,  and  let,  successively, 
the  light  grow  five  times  as  intense,  snufF  be  blown  up  his  nos- 
trils, a  dear   friend  approach,  and  the  earth  quake,  without 


10  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

in  any  case  any  other  changes  whatever  either  in  the  surround- 
ings or  in  his  internal  status.  Then  the  pupils  of  his  eyes 
would  contract,  he  would  sneeze,  he  would  smile,  and  he  would 
start. 

The  original  tendencies  of  man,  however,  rarely  act  one  at 
^  a  time  in  isolation  one  from  another.  Life  apart  from  learning  ' 
would  not  be  a  simple  serial  arrangement,  over  and  over,  of  a 
hundred  or  so  situations,  each  a  dynamic  unit ;  and  of  a  hundred 
or  so  responses,  fitted  to  these  situations  by  a  one-to-one  cor- 
respondence. On  the  contrary,  they  cooperate  in  multitudinous 
y.  combinations.  Their  combination  may  be  apparent  in  behavior, 
as  when  the  tendencies  to  look  at  a  bright  moving  object,  to 
reach  for  a  small  object  passing  a  foot  away,  and  to  smile  at  a 
smiling  familiar  face  combine  to  make  a  baby  smilingly  fixate 
and  reach  for  the  watch  which  his  father  swings.  Or  the  com- 
bination may  take  place  unobserved  in  the  nervous  system,  as 
when  a  large  animal  suddenly  approaching  a  solitary  child 
makes  him  run  and  hide,  thougli  the  child  in  question  would 
neither  run  nor  hide  at  solitude,  at  the  presence  of  the  animal, 
or  at  the  sudden  approach  of  objects  in  general. 

It  is  also  the  case  that  any  given  situation  does  not  act 
absolutely  as  a  unit,  producing  either  one  total  response  or  none 
at  all.  Its  effect  is  the  total  effect  of  its  elements,  of  which 
now  one,  now  another  may  predominate  in  determining  re- 
sponse, according  to  cooperating  forces  without  and  within  the 
man.  The  action  of  the  situations  which  move  man's  original 
nature  is  not  that  of  some  thousands  of  keys  each  of  which 
unlocks  one  door  and  does  nothing  else  whatever.  Any  situa- 
tion is  a  complex,  producing  a  complex  effect;  and  so,  if 
attendant  circumstances  vary,  a  variable  effect.  In  any  case 
it  does,  so  to  speak,  what  it  can. 

Ultimately,  indeed,  every  fact  in  human  life  is  a  case  of  the 
co-action  of  all  the  universe  except  the  man  in  question,  and 
the  condition  of  the  man  in  question  at  that  instant.  In  taking 
anything  short  of  all  the  universe  save  him  and  calling  it  the 
situation,  we  are  abstracting — are  replacing  the  total  effective 


GENERAL    CHARACTERISTICS  II 

situation  by  some  element  of  it.  Also,  in  taking  anything 
short  of  the  rich  entirety  of  the  man  at  that  instant  as  the  organ- 
ism, we  are  abstracting — ^are  replacing  the  total  effective  conh 
ditions  of  the  response  by  some  of  their  main  features.  Such 
abstraction  is,  of  course,  the  procedure  of  common  sense  and 
of  science.  Everywhere  there  is  abundant  justification  for 
building  up  an  abstract  scheme  of  the  responses  which  situa- 
tions a,  b,  c,  singly  evoke,  though  in  fact  they  never  act  singly ; 
or  of  the  bonds  between  situation  d  and  a  total  set  of  responses, 
though  in  fact  the  various  component  elements  of  d  are  never 
present  in  just  the  same  proportions  so  that  the  very  existence 
of  rf  as  a  thing  by  itself  is  a  myth. 

STAGES   IN    THE   DESCRIPTION    OF    HUMAN    NATURE 

The  history  of  modern  explanations  of  human  intellect, 
character  and  skill  shows  three  notable  stages.  In  the  first,  cer- 
tain mythical  potencies  were  postulated  which,  when  aroused  to 
action  by  the  events  of  a  man's  life,  produced  his  thoughts  and 
acts.  These  potencies  were  'instinct,'  which  could  do  almost 
anything  in  a  pinch,  the  'will,'  and  the  'faculties' — memory,  at- 
tention, reasoning  and  the  like.  The  actual  information  about 
human  nature  carried  by  these  explanations  was,  as  in  the 
current  uses  of  'instinct  of  preservation'  or  'capacity  for  self- 
expression,'  that  man  was  able  to  attain  certain  results  in  living. 
To  say  that  he  had  the  faculty  or  capacity  of  memory  said  that 
his  present  behavior  was  in  one  way  or  another  influenced  by  his 
past  experiences.  To  say  that  he  had  the  power  of  reason  was 
to  say  that  he  managed  by  thought  to  get  along  with  conditions 
which  would  baffle  a  stone,  tree,  rabbit,  or  himself  if  he  had  not 
thought.  Science  of  this  sort  could  prophesy  very  little  of  the 
behavior  of  any  given  man  in  any  given  situation. 

In  the  second  stage,  behavior  is  defined  in  terms  of  more 
or  less  clearly  described  states  of  affairs  to  which  man  responds 
by  more  or  less  clearly  described  thoughts,  movements,  emotions 
or  other  responses.  'Instinct'  gives  way  to  *instincts'^-each 
referring  to  a  bond  between  some  situation  and  some  response. 


12  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

In  place  of  referring  the  influence  of  the  past  on  the  present  to 
a  ubiquitous  demon  called  memory  who  alternately  absorbs 
and  excretes  facts,  men  study  the  formation  of  particular 
associations  or  bonds,  the  conditions  of  their  permanence  and 
later  effectiveness.  Reasoning  becomes  a  convenient  name  for 
the  cases  of  behavior  where  some  part  or  element  in  the  situa- 
tion is  predominant  in  determining  the  response,  and  where 
selection  takes  place  amongst  plans  in  view  of  ideas  about 
their  value  for  some  end.  We  thus  seek,  in  this  second  stage 
of  thought,  not  a  potency  that  vaguely  produces  large  groups 
of  consequences,  but  bonds  that  unite  particular  responses  or 
reactions  to  particular  situations  or  stimuli.  Science  of  this 
sort  leads  to  many  successful  prophecies  of  what  a  man  will 
think  or  do  in  a  given  case,  but  these  prophecies  are  crude  and 
subject  to  variability  and  qualification. 

In  the  third  stage,  behavior  will  be  defined  in  terms  of 
events  in  the  world  which  any  impartial  observer  can  identify 
and,  with  proper  facilities,  verify.  Each  situation  will  be  stated 
as  just  this  state  of  affairs  in  nature;  the  response  will  be 
stated  as  just  this  event  in  the  man ;  and  the  bond  will  be  stated 
as  just  this  set  of  habits  or  just  that  arrangement  and  condition 
of  the  man's  neurones  by  which  the  event  in  the  man  is  brought 
to  pass  when  that  state  of  affairs  is  present  in  nature.  Science 
of  this  sort,  by  giving  perfect  identifiability  and  fuller  knowl- 
edge, leads  to  completer  and  finer  prophecy  and  control  of 
human  nature. 

The  descriptions  of  certain  tendencies  to  behavior — for 
example,  that  of  Paramecium  in  response  to  certain  chemicals, 
that  of  the  dog  in  response  to  a  drop  of  acid  on  certain  spots  of 
his  skin,  and  that  of  man  in  response  to  a  tap  on  a  certain  spot 
on  the  knee — are  advancing  from  the  second  to  the  third 
stage.  The  descriptions  of  the  instincts  of  fear,  anger,  and  the 
like  are  advancing  from  the  first  to  the  second  stage.  But 
scores  of  such  terms  as  musical  ability,  mathematical  ability, 
technical  skill,  scholarship,  artistic  temperament,  piety,  quar- 
relsomeness, conventionality,  cooperativeness,  the  instinct  of 


GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS  13 

self-preservation,  the  social  instinct,  the  gambling  instinct,  the 
play  instinct,  the  instinct  for  justice,  and  the  like  .witness  to 
the  great  number  of  human  tendencies  whose  descriptions  are 
still  of  the  pattern  of  the  first  stage — mere  statements  that  some- 
how or  other  a  certain  result  is  attained. 

'Instincts  as  mythical  potencies  are,  to  say  the  least,  not  rigor- 
ously excluded  by  even  two  very  recent  and  in  many  ways  ad- 
mirable discussions — one,  of  the  relation  of  instinct  to  intelli- 
gence; the  other,  of  the  significance  of  instincts  for  a  philosophy 
of  education.  The  eminent  psychologists  who  discussed  'In- 
stinct and  Intelligence'  in  the  British  Journal  of  Psychology 
two  years  ago  ['lo,  vol.  3,  pp.  209-266]  again  and  again  speak 
of  instinct  as  if  it  were  something  like  a  heart  or  a  thyroid 
gland  or  a  'memory'  or  an  'imagination,'  which  did  this  and 
that  for  a  man.  Henderson  seems  deliberately  to  advocate 
remaining  in  this  first  stage  of  thought  in  the  case  of  unlearned 
tendencies.     He  says  : — 

"The  instincts  are  the  functions  of  the  organism  considered 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  needs  that  they  supply.  Most 
lists  of  instincts  are  selected  according  to  this  conception,  as 
the  feeding  instinct,  the  instinct  of  fear,  of  sociability,  of 
acquisitiveness,  of  curiosity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  instinctive 
act  is  a  complex  of  movements  that  constitutes  an  hereditarily 
preferred  method  of  carrying  out  one  or  many  instincts.  Cry- 
ing, for  example,  is  an  instinctive  act,  and  it  may  be  resorted 
to  as  a  means  of  satisfying  the  instinct  of  hunger,  that  of  fear, 
that  of  sociability,  and,  indeed,  almost  any  instinct  that  appears 
during  the  period  when  this  type  of  activity  prevails.  Just  as 
one  instinctive  act  may  be  utilized  by  many  instincts,  so  one 
instinct  may  function  by  means  of  a  variety  of  types  of  in- ) 
stinctive  or  habitual  activity.  Thus  the  instinct  of  fear  may 
lead  to  a  resort  to  the  instinctive  acts  of  crouching,  lying  still, 
or  hiding,  or  that  of  flight,  or  in  extreme  cases,  perhaps,  that 
of  desperate  fighting."     ['10,  p.  65] 

Next  to  the  separation  of  what  is  original  from  what  is 
learned,  the  main  task  of  a  description  of  the  original  nature  of 
man  is  to  progress  from  the  first  to  the  second  of  these  stages.* 

♦Progrress  from  the  second  to  the  third  stage  will  depend  upon  researches 
yet   to  be   made.     If  the   inventory   and   description   of  the   original   intellect 


14  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

For  it  has  remained  a  common  practice  to  describe  an 
original  tendency  only  by  its  results  even  when,  by  enough 
attention  to  facts,  the  situation  and  the  response  could  have 
been  at  least  roughly  defined.  This  is  unfortunate.  It  is  no 
more  necessary,  and  is  much  less  accurate,  to  describe  man 
loosely  as  possessed  of  an  'instinct  of  self-preservation'  than  it  is 
to  describe  oxygen  as  possessed  of  an  'instinct  of  rust 
production.' 

The  real  facts  meant,  in  this  and  in  all  cases,  are  a  multitude 
of  more  or  less  specialized  responses  to  certain  actual  situations, 
— in  this  sample  case,  drawing  back  from  a  missile  or  blow, 
running  from  this,  striking  back  at  that,  swallowing  what 
tastes  sweet,  spitting  out  what  tastes  very  bitter,  going  to 
sleep  after  long  exertion,  waking  up  after  long  sleep,  picking 
up  the  small  object  seen,  putting  in  one's  mouth  the  object 
picked  up,  etc.,  etc.  The  instinct  is  not  a  response  to,  'Pre- 
serve self  or  destroy  self?'  but  to  particular  material  objects 
and  living  animals  or  plants.  Its  moving  impulse  is  not  'to 
preserve  self — to  stay  alive'  but  some  such  concrete  feeling  as 
'get  rid  of  this  hunger — to  feel  comfortably  full  again'  or  'to 
get  away  from  that  horrid  beast.'  In  the  case  of  the  instinct 
proper,  unmodified  by  experience,  the  moving  impulse  is  not  a 
notion  of  end  or  aim  at  all.  For,  originally,  the  situation  it- 
self provokes  the  response  irrespective  of  any  thoughts  of  the 
consequences.  Even  sophisticated  adults  eat  oftenest  because 
they  are  hungry  or  see  or  smell  food,  not  because  they  will  he 
full. 

The  name  is  especially  misleading  because  the  same  instincts 
which  usually  result  in  preservation  may  result  in  death.  The 
child's  struggles  against  the  operating  surgeon  or  the  tasting 
of  lye,  corrosive  sublimate  and  the  like  along  with  spools  and 
candy,   are   samples   of  the  thousands   of  such   possibilities. 

and  character  of  man  as  a  species  to  be  given  in  this  volume  were  to  be 
confined  to  perfectly  identifiable  and  demonstrable  bonds  between  perfectly 
identified  situations  and  responses,  hardly  a  word  could  be  said  about  one  out 
of  ten  of  the  instincts  and  capacities  with  which  education,  politics,  business 
and  philanthropy  are  chiefly  concerned. 


GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS  15 

There  is  no  unlearned  tendency  to  respond  to  'life  vs.  death,' 
and  probably  there  is  none  which  inevitably,  under  every  set  of 
conditions,  does  result  in  life  rather  than  in  death.  Indeed, 
only  after  the  tendency  is  defined  in  terms  of  an  identifiable 
response  to  an  identifiable  situation  can  one  profitably  inquire 
whether  it  is  original  or  acquired,  or  how  far  it  is  original  and 
how  far  acquired. 

If  one  insists  resolutely  on  replacing  a  list  of  instincts  as 
magic  potencies  which  produce  certain  results,  by  a  statement  of 
even  roughly  definable  bonds  between  actual  situations  and 
actual  thoughts,  feelings  and  acts,  it  becomes  necessary  to  part 
company  with  the  stock  descriptions  of  instincts.  It  will  be  a 
great  advantage  if  thought  about  the  life  of  man  can  be  ad- 
vanced to  a  level  of  description  which  will  exclude  teleological 
lists  having  as  their  themes  such  mythical  potencies  as  the 
'instinct  of  self-preservation,'  which  makes  you  stay  alive — 
the  'social  instinct,'  which  makes  you  construct  a  society, — 
the  'parental  instinct,'  which  makes  you  treat  your  own  flesh 
and  blood  so  as  to  favor  them  in  all  ways, — the  'religious  in- 
stinct,' which  makes  you  believe  in  a  world  of  spirits, — 'con- 
structiveness,'  which  makes  you  build  up  all  sorts  of  edifices, 
— 'destructiveness,'  which  makes  you  tear  all  sorts  of  edifices 
down, — or  'fear,'  which  makes  you  avoid  danger.  To  secure 
this  advantage  for  students  of  education  is  one  main  purpose 
of  the  next  nine  chapters. 


chapter  iii 
Inventories  of  the  Original  Nature  of  Man 

As  a  first  step  toward  a  reasonable  estimate  o£  man's  orig- 
inal equipment,  we  may  consider  the  summary  of  the  special 
human  instmcts  which  James  ['93*]  reported  as  the  combined 
result  of  the  work  of  previous  writers  (notably,  W.  Preyer, 
['81]  and  G.  H.  Schneider  ['80,  '82])  and  of  his  own 
observations. 

For  convenience  I  repeat  the  list  itself,  where  possible  in 
James'  own  words,  but  for  the  detailed  descriptions  of  each 
tendency  the  reader  is  referred  to  Chapter  XXIV  of  James' 
Principles  of  Psychology.^ 

James  first  quotes  samples  of  the  reflexes  listed  by  Preyer,§ 
such  as  crying,  sneezing,  snuffling,  snoring,  coughing,  sighing, 
sobbing,  gagging,  vomiting,  hiccuping,  starting,  moving  the 
limb  in  response  to  its  being  tickled,  touched  or  blown  upon, 
spreading  the  toes  in  response  to  being  touched,  tickled  or 
stroked  on  the  sole  of  the  foot,  extending  and  raising  the  arms 
at  any  sudden  sensory  stimulus,  or  the  quick  pulsation  of  the 
eyelid.  Then  follows  his  list  and  descriptions  of  the  more  com- 
plex original  tendencies.  Where  possible  I  have  summarized 
each  description  in  one  phrase  for  the  situation  (printed  at  the 
left  of  the  page)  and  one  for  the  response  (printed  at  the 
right.)     Where  neither  is  described,  I  put  (in  the  centre  of  the 

*First  published,  however,  in  a  series  of  articles  in  1887. 

tit  should  be  noted  that  James  does  not  pretend  that  this  Tjst  is  exhaus- 
tive or  that  his  descriptions  are  precise,  his  interest  being  in  demonstrating 
the  vagueness,  modifiability  and  wide  range  of  human  instincts,  rather  than 
in  full  enumeration  or  exact  identification  of  the  situations  and  responses 
concerned.  It  is,  at  all  events,  one  of  the  best  single  lists  available,  and  its 
descriptions  are  much  above  the  average  in  accuracy. 

§  See  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  by  W.  Preyer  (Eng.  trans.).  Chap.  X. 

16 


INVENTORIES  OF   ORIGINAL    NATURE  17 

line  and  capitalized)   the  word  or  phrase  used  by  James  to 
describe  the  instinct  as  a  whole. 

James'  Inventory 

Sucking 
an  object  placed  in  the 

mouth biting 

Chewing 
Grinding  the  teeth 

sug^ licking 

a  sweet  taste a  characteristic  grimace 

a  bitter  taste a  characteristic  grimace 

Spitting  out 

an  object  which  touches 

the  fingers  or  toes clasping 

an  object  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance  attempts  to  grasp  it 

an  object  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance   pointing  at  it 

an  object  seen  at  a  dis- 
tance  making  a  peculiar  sound 

expressive  of  desire 

an  object  gasped carrying  it  to  the  mouth 

bodily  discomfort crying 

hunger crying 

pain crying 

being  noticed smiling 

being  fondled smiling 

being  smiled  at smiling 

an  object  attended  to protruding  the  lips 

Turning  the  head  aside,  frowning,  bending  back  the  body,  and 

holding  the  breath 

(these  last  three  accompanying  the  first  mentioned) 

Holding  head  erect 
Sitting  up 
Standing 
Creeping 
Walking 
Oimbing 
Cooing  and  gurgling 

3 


l8  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

hearing  a  sound imitating  the  sound 

seeing  a  gesture imitating  a  gesture 

Emulation  or  rivalry 
Pugnacity 

Anger 
Resentment 

the  sight  of  suffering  or 

danger  to  others interest     and     acts     of 

relief 
"all  living  beasts,  great 

and      small      toward 

which  a  contrary  habit 

has  not  been  found — 

all   human   beings   in 

whom  we  perceive  a 

certain  intent  toward 

us,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  human  beings 

who   offend   us   per- 
emptorily,   either    by 

their  look,  or  gait,  or 

by  some  circumstance 

in    their    lives    which 

we  dislike" hunting 

certain  noises fear 

strange  men fear 

strange  animals fear 

certain  kinds  of  vermin fear 

solitude  (during  infancy) fear 

black  things fear 

dark  places fear 

holes  and  corners fear 

high  places fear 

certain   ideas   of   super- 
natural agency fear 

a  human  corpse fear 

fear running 

fear remaining      semi-paral- 
yzed 
fear trembling 


INVENTORIES   OF   ORIGINAL    NATURE  I9 

Appropriation  or  acquisitiveness  or  the  proprietary  instinct 

any  object  which  pleases attention,  snatching 

any  object  which  pleases attention,  begging 

Envy 

Jealousy 

To  form  collections 

Constructiveness 

"whatever  things  are 
plastic  to  his  hands  he 

must" "remodel  into  shapes  of 

his  own" 

Habitation — "to  make  a  sheltered  nook,  open  on  only  one  side" 

"when    not    altogether 

unenclosed" "he    feels   less    exposed 

and  more  at  home 
than  when  lying  all 
abroad" 

Play 

"another  boy  who  runs 

provokingly  near" running  after  him 

"seeing     another     child 

pick  up  some  object" trying  to  get  it 

"someone  trying  to  take 

an  object  away" trying     to     get     away 

with  it 

Love  of  festivities,  ceremonies,  and  ordeals 

"concerted  action  as  one 
of  an  organized 
crowd" excitement 

perceiving  such  a  crowd "a  tendency  to  join  them 

and  do  what  they  are 
doing  and  an  unwill- 
ingness to  be  the  first 
to  leave  off  and  go 
home  alone" 

Curiosity 

novelty  in  any  movable 
feature  of  the  envir- 
onment   being  excited  and   irri- 
tated 


20  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

Sociability  and  shyness 

being  alone discomfort 

meeting  a  stranger shyness 

Secretiveness 

"unfamiliar   human   be- 
ings,  especially   those 

whom  we  respect" "the  arrest  of  whatever 

we  are  saying  or  do- 
ing ....  coupled  often 
with  the  pretense  that 
we  were  not  saying 
or  doing  that  thing, 
but  possibly  some- 
thing different" 

love  affairs to  conceal  them 

Qeanliness 
"excrementitious      and 
putrid    things,    blood, 
pus,  entrails  and  dis- 
eased tissues" repugnance 

Modesty,  shame  (?) 

Personal  isolation 

Love  between  the  sexes 

Coyness 

Parental  love 

Indefiniteness  in  Descriptions  of  Original  Tendencies 

This  list,  and  still  more  so  James'  full  account,  should  sug- 
gest at  once  the  question,  "How  can  the  description,  of  a  ten- 
dency in  human  nature  be  so  made  as  to  ensure  that  all  com- 
petent students  can  from  it  identify  the  tendency — know  what 
they  are  to  look  for  or  argue  about?"  For  example,  no  one 
doubts  the  truth  of  the  statement,  "The  tendency  which  we  call 
curiosity  is  more  or  less  instinctive,"  but  also  no  one  could 
learn  from  it  just  what  is  instinctive^  Obviously,  whether 
or  not  a  tendency  is  unlearned,  cannot  b^  tested  until  one  knows 


INVENTORIES   OF    ORIGINAL    NATURE  21 

what  the  tendency  is  well  enough  to  observe  whether  it  is 
present  or  not.  Nor  can  a  tendency  be  used  in  education  or 
other  forms  of  social  control  until  one  knows  what  it  itself  is. 
The  statement  that  'Curiosity,'  ^Rivalry,'  'Pugnacity,'  and  *Con- 
structiveness'  are  original  tendencies  gives  us  more  questions 
than  answers. 

The  answer  to  the  question  is,  of  course,  "By  defining  the 
tendency  as  a  situation,  a  response  and  a  degree  of  probability 
that  apart  from  training  the  latter  will  happen  when  the  former 
does."  Suppose  the  statement  about  curiosity  to  be:  "To  the 
world  in  general,  a  child,  apart  from  training,  makes,  much 
oftener  thao  chance  would  allow,  responses  of — looking  at, 
touching,  tasting,  manipulating  and  further  sensory  examina- 
tion. To  new  experiences,  a  child,  apart  from  training,  makes, 
much  oftener  thap  chance  or  other  instincts  would  allow,  re- 
sponses of  feeling  satisfaction  and  of  doing  nothing  to  avoid 
and  something  to  continue  or  repeat  the  experiences."  This 
statement,  though  far  indeed  from  a  model  description,  is 
much  more  suitable  than  the  mere  word  'curiosity'  to  guide  ob- 
servation, thought  and  practice^  Greater  exactitude  in  the  de- 
scription is  to  be  got  in  the  same  way,  by  describing  objectively 
further  details  of  the  situations,  the  responses,  and  their  bonds. 

Often  in  James'  list  the  response  is  descril^ed,  at  least  in 
gross  terms,  such  as  'weeping,'  'standing,'  'creeping,'  'follow- 
ing,' 'turning  the  head  aside'  or  'impersonating,'  but  the  sit- 
uations are  left  quite  unidentifiable.  It  is.  of  course,  helpful  to 
know  that  crying  or  turning  the  head  aside  are  unlearned  re- 
sponses, but  it  would  be  still  more  helpful  to  know  at  what 
children  instinctively  cry  and  from  what  objects  they  turn  the 
head  aside.  Less  often  the  situation  is  described,  at  least  in 
gross  terms,  such  as  a  'sweet  taste'  or  'hearing  a  sound.'  or  'the 
sight  of  blood,'  but  the  responses  are  left  unidentifiable.  'A 
characteristic  grimace  at  a  sweet  taste,'  though  better  than 
nothing,  is  hardly  an  adequate  description.  'Imitating  a  sound 
heard'  m^y  mean  anything  from  duplicating  it  to  making  a 
sound  to  some  slight  extent  like  it. 


22  the  original  nature  of  man 

Criteria  of  the  Probable  Unlearnedness  of  a  Tendency 

A  second  question  suggested  by  James'  account  of  human 
instincts  is,  'Must  we,  in  attempting  to  inventory  original  hu- 
man nature,  either  rely  upon  intuition  or  canvass  every  ob- 
served tendency  and  test  it  to  see  whether  it  is  in  whole  or  in 
part  original?  Or  are  there  guiding  principles,  fundamental 
facts,  which  at  once  rule  out  whole  classes  of  tendencies  and 
make  it  very  probable  that  other  whole  classes  of  tendencies  are 
original  ?'  James  apparently  uses  his  own  and  other  men's  in- 
tuitions in  limiting  the  field  for  examination  and  uses  the  cri- 
teria of  universality,  blindness  (the  absence  of  foreknowledge 
of  the  nature  or  consequences  of  the  response)  and  automatic- 
ity  as  further  tests.*  In  the  light  of  the  work  that  has  been 
done  since  his  time  of  writing,  the  following  further  principles 
of  guidance  are  worth  notice: 

1.  Any  tendency  to  behavior  characteristic  of  mammals 
in  general  has  at  least  some  likelihood  of  existing  originally  in 
man.  For  example,  the  tendencies  to'  respond  to  'a  large  ob- 
ject coming  toward  one  rapidly'  by  'going  away  from  it'  and 
to  *a  small  object  going  away  from  one  slowly'  by  'going 
after  it,'  characteristic  of  many  mammals,  should  be  an  object 
of  interest  to  observers  of  children, 

2.  Any  tendency  characteristic  of  the  primates  in  gen- 
eral except  man,  has  some  likelihood  of  existence  ih  man  also. 
For  example,  the  fact  that  the  monkeys  respond  quite  differ- 
ently to  the  situations  'object  being  clung  to  by  them'  and  'object 
holding  on  to  them,'  though  the  object  be  the  same,  suggests 
that  in  human  behavior  also  the  situation  'the  mother'  or  'a 
familiar  person'  needs  further  definition. 

*It  may  be  noted  that  neither  universality,  nor  blindness  nor  automaticity 
is  a  sure  test  of  the  unlearnedness  of  a  tendency.  There  is  probably  no 
original  tendency  to  keep  out  of  love  with  one  known  to  be  the  child  of  one's 
mother,  yet  that  tendency  is  far  more  nearly  universal  than  many  that  are 
demonstrably  instinctive.  A  person  in  moving  his  eyes  as  in  reading  a  book 
does  not  know  in  advance  how  far  his  eyes  will  move,  nor,  as  he  nears  the 
end  of  the  line,  whether  they  will  move  on  or  back — much  less  what  the  result 
will  be,  yet  the  control  of  eye  movements  in  reading  is  surely  learned.  Auto- 
maticity, of  course,  may  characterize  habits  which  are  very  well  learned. 


INVENTORIES   OF    ORIGINAL    NATURE  23 

3.  A  tendency,  which,  though  not  found  in  man's  animal 
ancestors,  can  be  shown  to  have  been  a  probable  result  of  likely 
variations  of  their  original  tendencies — to  be  in  possible  con- 
tinuity with  their  instincts — has  thereby  an  increased  possibil- 
ity of  being  instinctive.  This  principle  is  of  little  use  in  the 
present  state  of  knowledge,  since  we  do  not  know  the  exact 
line  of  our  animal  ancestors;  nor,  if  we  did,  would  we  know 
the  exact  nature  of  their  instinctive  equipment. 

4.  Universality  is  not  itself  a  proof  of  instinctiveness. 
But  any  widespread  and  easily  inhibited  tendency  which  is 
harmful  or  useless  under  the  conditions  of  modem  civilized 
life  may  be  suspected  of  being  original;  men  tend  to  learn 
unanimously  only  what  is  useful  to  any  man  and  also  easy  to 
learn. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  these  principles  are  not  criteria 
for  the  unleamedness  of  a  tendency,  but  only  for  the  wisdom  .of 
testing  its  presence.  Man  has  undoubtedly  lost  some  of  the 
original  tendencies  (e.  g.,  to  respond  to  smells)  characteristic 
of  the  mammals  in  general ;  he  may  well  have  never  acquired^ 
or  have  lost,  some  of  the  tendencies  characteristic  of  the  pri- 
mates in  general.  Man's  original  nature  is  by  no  means  that 
of  an  early  mammal  plus  certain  additions  proper  to  an  early 
primate,  plus  his  specific  contribution.  There  has  been  subtrac- 
tion as  well  as  addition^  Even  if  the  evolution  of  human  in- 
stincts had  been  merely  a  process  of  addition,  the  criteria  fro«i 
ancestry  could  be  valid  only  to  guide  observation,  not  to  decide 
facts,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that  no  one  knows  what  the  in- 
stincts of  either  the  early  mammal  or  the  early  primate  were. 

5.  McDougall  ['08]  suggests  that  if  a  tendency  can  be- 
come abnormally  exaggerated  without  any  general  mental  ab- 
normality, the  tendency  is  probably  original.  "For  it  would 
seem  that  each  instinctive  disposition,  being  a  relatively  inde- 
pendent functional  unit  in  the  constitution  of  the  mind,  is  cap- 
able of  morbid  hypertrophy  or  of  becoming  abnormally  excit- 
able, independently  of  the  rest  of  the  mental  dispositions  and 
functions."     ['08,  p.  49.] 


24  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

The  negative  principles  of  guidance  are : 
6.  It  is  unlikely  that  the  original  connections  are  ever  be- 
tween an  idea  and  either  another  idea  or  a  movement.  No 
one  has,  I  think,  found  satisfactory  evidence  that,  apart  from 
training,  an  idea  leads  of  inner  necessity  to  any  one  response. 
And  there  is  good  evidence  to  show  that  original  connections 
are  exclusively  with  sensory  situations.  In  James'  list,  for 
instance,  the  only  case  where  ideas  are  reported  as  the  situations 
is  the  case  of  impersonating,  or  responding  to  the  idea  of  an 
animal  or  object  by  mimicing  it  in  action;  and  this  case  is 
surely  doubtful.  We  have,  of  course,  by  original  nature  the 
capacities  to  connect  the  idea  of  one  thing  to  the  idea  of  another 
thing  when  the  two  have  been  in  certain  relations,  and  to  break 
up  the  idea  of  a  total  fact  into  ideas  of  its  elements,  when  once 
ideas  have  been  given  that  are  capable  of  such  association  and 
analysis.  But  we  do  not  apparently,  by  original  nature,  have 
preformed  bonds  leading  from  ideas  to  anything.  If  an  idea 
apart  from  training  provokes  a  response,  it  does  so  by  virtue 
of  its  likeness  to  some  sensory  perception  or  emotion.  Nor 
do  we  apparently  by  original  nature  respond  to  a  situation  by 
any  one  idea  rather  than  another.  That  we  think  is  due  to 
original  capacity  to  associate  and  analyze,  but  what  we  think 
is  due  to  the  environmental  conditions  under  which  these  ca- 
pacities work. 

7.  It  is  unlikely  that  an  object  or  act  produced  by  human 
learning — such  as  a  pen,  a  typewriter,  a  printed  or  spoken 
word — should  provoke  to  any  responses  peculiar  to  it.  Prob- 
ably all  unlearned  responses  to  such  objects  are  made  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  analogy  that  when  any  situation  has 
no  response  connected  with  it,  the  response  made  will  be  that 
connected  with  the  situation  most  like  it. 

The  school  of  investigators  who  have  paid  the  most  atten- 
tion to  the  concrete  study  of  man's  original  tendencies  have 
often  unhesitatingly  assumed  that  man's  experience  with  the 
results  of  his  own  learning  has  left  traces  of  itself  in  his  un- 
learned responses.     To  these  investigators  our  seventh  prin- 


INVENTORIES  OF   ORIGINAL    NATURE  2$ 

ciple  will  appear  too  strict.  The  justification  of  it  against  this 
criticism  is  to  be  made  on  the  basis  of  the  probabiHty  (to  be 
discussed  in  Chapter  XV)  that  the  sources  of  original  nature 
are  not  the  learning  of  past  generations  but  only  the  modifica- 
tions of  their  germs  by  inner  variation. 

8.  It  is  unlikely  that  man  will  have  a  number  of  responses, 
each  limited  to  a  sharply  defined  situation  or  group  of  situa- 
tions, in  cases  where  one  response  to  some  feature  of  many 
situations,  will,  when  aided  by  the  laws  of  habit,  serve  as  well. 
Thus,  it  would  be  unlikely  that  man  should  be  endowed  with 
hundreds  of  separate  tendencies  to  move  the  arm  and  hand  in 
grasping,  each  fitted  to  the  position  of  the  head,  position  of 
the  eyes,  retinal  impression,  degree  of  accommodation  and 
degree  of  convergence  aroused  by  an  object  at  one  particular 
direction  and  distance  from  the  eyes.  For  the  tendency  to 
reach  vaguely,  plus  the  tendency  to  alter  the  extent  and  direc- 
tion of  the  reaching  so  long  as  the  object  remained  untouched, 
plus  the  tendency  to  grasp  in  one  way  after  another  so  long  as 
the  object  remained  unheld,  would  suffice  nearly  as  well.  In 
escaping  from  the  error  of  leaving  an  instinct  described  only  by 
results  as  'reaching  for  an  object  seen,'  or  'grasping  an  object 
touched  with  the  finger  or  toes,'  we  must  not  make  the  opposite 
error  of  expecting  nature  to  have  provided  a  ready-made  special 
outfit  of  reaching  movements  for  each  appropriate  point  of 
space  seen,  or  a  special  outfit  of  grasping  movements  according 
to  each  part  of  the  hand  touched  in  each  position  which  the 
hand  may  take. 

All  of  these  criteria  of  probabilities  are  intrinsically  of 
slight  value  compared  with  actual  observations  of  how,  apart 
from  training,  the  human  animal  does  respond  to  situations. 
If  all  men,  or  nearly  all  men,  did,  at  their  first  experience  of  a 
piano  or  anything  like  a  piano,  play  'Yankee  Doodle'  upon  it, 
we  should  know  that,  in  the  original  constitution  of  man's 
nervous  system,  this  highly  improbable  connection  did  exist. 
If  children,  when  properly  tested,  do  not  make,  apart  from 
training,  two  different  respKDnses  to  objects  a  foot  away  and 


2^  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

objects  four  feet  away,  we  must  deny  the  existence  of  an  un- 
learned adaptation  to  distance,  no  matter  how  probable  it 
seemed.  But  when,  as  is  usually  the  case,  the  certainties  of  ob- 
served facts  are  lacking,  these  probabilities  are  helpful.  They 
should  be  kept  in  mind  throughout  the  discussions  of  the  next 
nine  chapters. 


chapter  iv 
Sources  of  Information 

The  special  studies  of  unlearned  tendencies  in  man  which 
have  been  made  since  the  publication  of  James's  chapter  on 
Instinct  fall  with  few  exceptions  into  two  groups.  One  group 
comprises  the  direct  observations  of  children,  notably  the  biog- 
raphies of  single  infants,  such  as  those  by  Preyer  ['8i],  Moore 
[96],  Mrs.  W.  S.  Hall  ['96,  '97],  Shinn  ['93,  '99],  and  G.  V. 
N.  Dearborn  ['10]. 

In  the  other  group  are  the  collections  of  testimony  about 
various  features  of  human  behavior  made  by  Stanley  Hall  and 
his  pupils. 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  BY  SYSTEMATIC 
OBSERVATIONS  OF  CHILDREN 

Observers  of  infants  have  rarely  so  arranged  the  circum- 
stances of  the  infant's  life  that  his  behavior  in  even  the  few 
most  interesting  cases  could  be  surely  referred  to  original  na- 
ture on  the  one  hand  or  to  acquired  connections  on  the  other. 
They  have  in  fact  contented  themselves  as  a  rule  with  narrating 
that  he  did  so  and  so  at  such  a  time.  And  no  one  of  them 
since  Preyer  has  attempted  to  inventory  the  unlearned  tenden- 
cies manifested  by  infants  in  general  or  by  one  infant  in 
particular. 

The  task  of  demonstrarting  the  unleamedness  or  learned- 
ness  of  even  a  single  tendency  is  an  intricate  one.  To  find 
out  even  approximately  what  the  original  tendency  to  respond 
is  in  the  case  of  the  situation,  *a  garter  snake  seen,'  it  would 
be  necessary  to  present  that  situation  to  children  who  had  been 
carefully  kept  from  any  experience  of  a  snake  or  anything  like 

37 


28  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

a  snake.  Since  the  instinct  might,  though  real,  be  delayed  and 
transitory,  it  would  be  necessary  to  do  this  with  many  different 
children,  some  at  one  age,  some  a  week  or  so  older,  some  still 
older,  and  so  on.  Since  original  nature  might  furnish  conned- 
tions  between  *a  garter  snake  seen  crawling  toward  one  on  the 
ground'  and  a  certain  response  and  still  not  connect  *a  garter 
snake  held  in  the  hand  of  a  familiar  satisfaction-giving  human 
intimate'  with  any  such  response,  it  would  be  necessary  to  de- 
fine the  concomitants  of  the  'garter  snake  seen'  in  various 
ways,  and  to  experiment  with  each,  before  denying  tVie  exist- 
ence of,  say,  an  original  avoiding  reaction. 

Moreover,  the  scientific  biographies  of  infants  since  Preyer 
have  been  much  more  interested  in  deciding  whether  the  be- 
havior witnessed  gave  evidence  of  this  or  that  conscious  ele- 
ment than  in  deciding  whether  it  was  unlearned  or  learned. 

A  systematic  enumeration  of  every  statement  that  a  ten- 
dency was  unlearned  or  instinctive  in  five  of  the  more  elaborate 
biographies,  since  Preyer's,  yields  very  meagre  returns  for 
our  purpose,  I  shall  therefore  not  rehearse  by  themselves  the 
scattered  facts  about  the  original  nature  of  man  to  be  gleaned 
from  these  histories  of  infants.  They  will  be  used,  together 
with  such  observations  as  I  have  been  able  to  make,  in  the 
provisional  inventory  of  instincts  and  capacities  which  will  be 
given  in  the  next  eight  chapters. 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  BY  A  CENSUS  OF 

OPINIONS 

During  the  past  twenty  years  Stanley  Hall,  and  many  stu- 
dents under  his  direction,  have  surveyed  concrete  human  be- 
havior over  a  wide  range,  summarizing  the  existing  facts  and 
opinions,  seeking  testimony  by  distribuohg  printed  questions, 
describing  the  gist  of  the  testimony  and  adding  opinions  based 
upon  it,  and  upon  their  own  general  experiences  of  human  na- 
ture. The  interest  of  these  students  has  not  been  confined  to  the 
question  of  what  in  human  behavior  is  unlearned,  but  that 
question  has  been  prominent  in  the  minds  of  the  more  thought- 


SOURCES   OF   INFORMATION  29 

ful  and  in  the  mind  of  the  director  of  the  work  it  has  often 
been  primary. 

In  subject  matter  these  studies  further  encourage  the  hope 
that  they  will  tell  how  human  beings  respond  to  various  fun- 
damental situations  apart  from  learning, — what  elements  in 
their  behavior  are  original.  For  among  them  are  reports  of 
what  the  responses  of  human  beings,  especially  children,  are 
to  water,  trees,  clouds,  dogs,  dolls,  the  moon,  puzzles  and  other 
important  groups  of  situations ;  and  of  what  the  situations  are 
which  provoke  such  important  responses  as  fear,  anger,  love, 
pity,  teasing,  bullying,  collecting,  laughter,  curiosity,  rivalry, 
and  jealousy. 

The  value  of  whatever  answers  these  studies  give  will 
depend  upon  the  methods  of  collecting  and  treating  evidence 
which  they  use.  In  this  respect  they  show  certain  notable 
peculiarities.  In  particular,  their  material  is,  almost  without 
exception,  not  direct  observation,  but  either  the  answers  writ- 
ten in  reply  to  a  printed  list  of  questions  or  the  papers  written 
by  school  children  as  a  school  exercise  in  response  to  some  ques- 
tion or  suggestion. 

I  quote  from  one  of  the  best  known  of  these  studies*  at 
sufficient  lengfth  to  give  a  rough  idea  of  the  mie^thod  in-  its 
more  successful  application. 

Some  of  the  questions  asked  were: 

"Growth  generally.  When  was  growth  in  height  or  weight 
greatest  ?  Was  this  period  of  growth  attended  by  better  or  de- 
ranged health?  Give  any  details,  as  to  how  much,  where,  how 
long,  etc. 

General  Health,  then  and  now.  If  imperfect,  how,  respecting 
eyes,  nerves,  head,  stomach,  etc.?  Was  sleep  or  dreams,  or  appe- 
tite for  food  affected? 

Changes  of  Form  and  feature.  Did  chin,  nose,  cheek-bone, 
brow,  chest,  hair,  and  other  features  change,  and  how?  Was 
there  a  different  facial  expression?  New  resemblances?  To 
whom? 

Senses  and  Thought.  Are  the  senses  keener,  wider  ranged? 
More  engfrossing?     Is  there  a  change  from  sense  to  thought; 

^Lancaster's  'Psychology  and  Pedagogy  of  Adolescence,'  Pedagogical 
Seminary,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  61-128. 


30  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

from  the  present  to  the  future ;  the  near  to  the  far  ?  What  new 
ideals,  abstract  or  personal? 

Language.  Was  it  harder  or  easier  to  express  oneself,  and 
was  there  a  dumb,  bound  feeling?  Was  truth-telling  harder  or 
easier? 

Future.  Were  careers,  plans,  vocations,  trades,  etc.,  dwelt 
upon? 

Home.  Did  the  attractiveness  of  home  diminish,  and  was 
there  a  tendency  to  be  out,  go  far  away,  strike  out  for  self,  seek 
new  associations  and  friends?  Should  home  be  left  part  of  the 
time? 

Parents  and  Family.  Did  parental  influence  decline?  How 
differently  were  father  and  mother,  brother,  sister,  and  other 
relatives  regarded?     Parental  authority,  punishments? 

School.  Was  there  a  disposition  to  leave  school,  change  stud- 
ies or  teachers,  defy  authority,  or  to  feel  more  deeply  studies, 
punishments  and  discipline?" 

The  author  gives  in  every  case  of  importance  samples  of 
the  replies.  For  instance,  from  the  replies  to  the  question 
about  careers,  plans,  vocations,  etc.,  he  quotes  the  following: 

"F.,  i8.  As  a  child  I  dreamed  much  of  the  future.  Wanted  to 
to  be  a  musician,  elocutionist,  artist,  milliner,  bookkeeper,  dress- 
maker and  a  school-teacher.  Have  often  desired  to  be  as 
beautiful  in  character  as  Christ  himself. 

F.,  24.  One  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  my  life  has  been  to 
make  plans  and  map  out  an  ideal  career. 

F.,  20.  Planned  to  teach  in  my  early  childhood.  At  13  I 
began  to  declare  it,  and  after  much  discussion  my  wish  was 
granted,  and  I  began  to  prepare  for  it,  to  my  great  delight. 

M.,  50.  Nothing  is  more  intense  and  vivid  than  my  plans 
for  the  future.  One  scene.  A  high  hill  with  bald  summit.  Had 
been  blamed  for  something  and  went  to  that  peak.  Alone  there 
I  had  a  very  deep  and  never-to-be-forgotten  experience.  I  paced 
back  and  forth  and  said :  'Now  I  will,  /  WILL,  make  people  like 
me,  and  /  WILL  do  something  in  the  world.'  I  called  everything 
to  witness  my  vow. 

F.,  23.  My  plans  for  the  future  were  all  for  literary  fame. 
School  aroused  my  ambition  and  for  three  successive  years  I  took 
essay  prizes. 

M.,  18.  I  look  to  the  future.  Think  of  myself  as  teaching, 
reading  law,  at  the  bar,  in  legislature,  an  active  speaker  always 
taking  the  side  of  right  and  denouncing  wrong.  I  have  had 
many  ideals,  one  to  be  a  minister. 

F.,  19.     I  often  think  of  the  future  and  wonder  what  it  has  in 


SOURCES   OF   INFORMATION  31 

store  for  me.  I  sometimes  wish  that  ten  years  would  pass  in  a 
night 

M.,  19.  Planned  his  future  and  painted  it  with  the  tints  of  the 
seashell. 

F.,  19.  In  mind  I  have  planned  the  first  day  of  school  and 
gone  through  it  many,  many  times.  At  one  time  I  wanted  to  be 
a  trained  nurse.  I  pictured  myself  among  the  patients  and  how 
I  would  act  in  an  operation.  Then  how  I  would  study  abroad 
and  get  a  fine  position." 

He  also  discusses  each  topic  in  a  general  way.  The  follow- 
ing is  his  presentation  of  facts  and  conclusions,  with  reference 
to  the  attitude  of  adolescents  toward  home,  parents  and  family : 

"403  answered  the  question  regarding  home.  253 — 153  M., 
100  F.,  had  a  desire  to  leave  home  and  strike  out  for  themselves 
or  found  home  less  attractive.  150 — 29  M.,  121  F.,  had  no  desire 
to  leave  home. 

107  thought  that  home  should  be  left  a  part  of  the  time,  20 
thought  it  should  not. 

As  to  parents  and  family,  281  replied.  99 — 33  M.,  (16  F.,  said 
said  parental  influence  did  decline,  while  181 — 35  M.,  146  F,, 
found  their  parents  just  as  dear  and  obeyed  them  as  readily  as  in 
diildhood. 

100 — 32  M.,  68  F.,  felt  a  disposition  to  leave  school  or  did 
leave  for  a  while  during  this  period.  192 — 98  M.,  94  F.,  had 
no  such  feeling. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  returns  were  mostly  from 
normal  school,  high  school,  academy  and  college  students,  a 
majority  of  whom  were  away  from  home  when  they  wrote. 

75 — 34  M.,  41  F.,  say  that  punishment  was  felt  much  more 
deeply.     18 — 9  M.,  9  F.,  experienced  no  change. 

This  gives  a  very  true  picture  of  the  feelings  of  young  people 
toward  home,  school,  and  authority  at  this  period  of  life,  because 
the  answers  were  given  under  conditions  allowing  free  speech  and 
favoring  home,  parents  and  school.  It  is  a  very  forcible  illustra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  a  boy  or  girl  from  12  to  18  is  fully  conscious 
of  personality  and  the  rights  of  individual  recognition. 

This  feeling  that  home  is  shut  in  and  the  desire  to  get  away 
and  travel,  to  see  for  oneself  and  form  new  associations,  is  an 
instinct  as  old  as  the  race  and  common  to  all  animal  life.  It  is 
like  the  migratory  instinct  of  birds.  It  may  spring  up  suddenly 
with  the  most  obedient  and  well-bred  children.  It  is  not  a  sign 
of  degeneration  or  of  less  love  for  the  home  or  parents.  It  is 
often  associated  with  the  most  iniense  love  of  home  and  family. 

The  feeling  is  strongest  at  16  to  18  or  about  the  time  of  the 
final  approach  to  maturity. 


32  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

The  sudden  feeling-  of  rebellion  against  authority,  which  often 
surprises  the  child  as  much  as  the  parent,  is  another  instinctive 
habit  of  the  race.  These  crop  out  in  the  best  children,  sometimes 
with  a  violence  that  shocks  everybody. 

It  is  not  necessarily  a  bad  sign,  unless  frequently  repeated. 
The  desire  to  leave  school,  together  with  the  desire  to  leave  home, 
is  a  true  and  natural  impulse  to  adjust  himself  to  the  life  which 
he  is  already  living  in  his  imagination  in  company  with  his 
ideals. 

Sympathy,  not  punishment,  is  the  proper  corrective." 

The  method  is  thus  one  of  general  inquiry,  selection  from 
the  replies,  and  naive  acceptance  of  them  at  their  face-value. 
Its  trustworthiness  will  vary  with  the  topic,  the  questions,  the 
answers,  and  the  examiner  of  the  answers.  Some  general 
principles,  however,  are  sure  and  may  guide  us  in  estimating 
the  worth  of  the  method  in  any  single  case.  First  of  all,  the 
ignorance  of  a  thousand  people  is  no  better  than  that  of  one; 
truth  cannot  be  manufactured  from  constant  errors  by  getting 
a  great  number  of  them.  For  instance,  from  scoring  up  re- 
plies to  the  question,  'When  did  your  child  first  reason?'  we 
do  not  necessarily  learn  anything  about  the  date  of  appearance 
of  reasoning,  but  only  about  opinions  of  people  as  to  that  date. 
From  scoring  up  replies  to  the  suggestion,  'Describe  some  miser 
of  your  acquaintance,'  we  attain  knowledge,  not  necessarily 
of  misers,  but  of  what  our  correspondents  notice  or  think  they 
have  noticed  in  some  obvious  types  of  miserliness.  No  re- 
search can  ever  attain  a  reliability  beyond  that  possessed  by  the 
data  with  which  it  starts.  And  the  first  duty  of  any  study  of 
individual  responses  to  questions  or  suggestions  is  to  measure 
their  reliability  as  measures  of  the  trait  in  question.  Adults 
even  so  well  trained  as  college  seniors  and  even  in  the  simplest 
matters  of  present  objective  fact  such  as  are  involved  in  the 
questions,  'How  tall  are  you?'  and  'What  is  the  circumference 
of  your  sister's  head  ?',  make  gross  errors.  The  errors  increase 
in  number  and  amount  when  the  report  requires  memory;  in- 
crease further  when  the  fact  is  a  report  of  subjective  condition ; 
and  multiply  like  bacilli  when  it  involves  the  consideration  of 
the  general  drift  of  a  series  of  experiences.     Again,  no  matter 


SOURCES    OF   INFORMATION  33 

how  clearly  the  question  is  put,  some  individuals  misunder- 
stand it.  Finally,  any  question  acts  as  a  suggestion  and  with 
uncritical  minds  will  surely  produce  affirmative  answers. 

There  are  means  of  avoiding  many  of  these  errors  and 
recognizing  and  allowing  for  many  of  the  others.  But  these 
means  have  not  been  used  in  the  investigations  under  discus- 
sion. We  can  feel  but  little  confidence  in  a  method  which  pre- 
tends to  secure  truth  from  using  at  their  face-value  the  an- 
swers of  young  people  in  normal  schools  to  such  questions  as 
the  following: 

Have  liberalizing  theological  opinions  made  you  better  or 
worse,  and  how  ?    Ped.  Sent.,  Vol.  V.,  p.  8. 

What  is  your  own  temperament?     Ibid.,  p.  13. 

Has  your  belief  in  immortality  been  an  unfoldment  of  your 
nature  or  is  it  the  result  of  parental  influence,  scriptural  teaching, 
observation  of  natural  phenomena,  loss  of  friends  in  death,  or 
your  own  inability  to  conceive  your  existence  as  coming  to  an 
end  ?    Ped.  Sent.,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  287. 

What  effect  has  [sic]  a  new  overcoat,  high  hat,  high  heels, 
ribbons,  plumes,  bright-buttoned  uniforms,  articles  of  jewelry, 
buttons,  badges,  etc.,  upon  the  self-confidence,  self-assertiveness 
and  personality  of  the  owner?    Ibid.,  p.  430. 

What  force  and  motive  led  you  to  seek  a  higher  and  better 
life?    ^w. /.  0/ Pjv.,  Vol.  Vni.,  p.  269. 

What  do  you  know  of  beggars?  Their  habits,  laws,  customs? 
Ped  Sem.,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  431. 

What  studies  have  best  developed  your  memory?  Am.  J.  of 
Psy.,  Vol.  X.,  p.  229. 

Can  blood  pressure  be  tested  ?    Am.  J.  of  Psy.,  Vol.  X.,  p.  529. 

In  the  second  place  the  facts  reported  by  individuals  who 
respond  to  sets  of  printed  questions  need  not,  and  commonly 
will  not,  represent  the  true  state  of  affairs  in  the  group  oster^ 
sibly  studied.  Psychological  questionnaires  are  commonly 
sent  to  'those  interested'  or  to  classes  in  normal  schools,  and 
answered  by  only  a  limited  number  of  those  who  receive  them 
— namely,  by  the  individuals  to  whom  the  questions  especially 
appeal  and  who  have  something  to  report,  or  by  those  who 
answer  them  as  an  academic  task.  The  replies  thus  represent 
an  extremely  partial  sampling  of  people  in  general.  More- 
over, of  those  who  do  reply,  either  from  zeal  or  as  a  matter  of 
3 


34  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

school  work,  only  a  small  number  answer  all  the  questions.  In 
the  case  of  any  one  question,  then,  we  get  answers  from  very 
few,  probably  from  those  who  have  a  positive  or  emphatic 
answer.  We  can  be  sure  beforehand  that  these  replies  will  not 
give  a  representation  of  the  facts  that  really  exist  in  the  total 
group.  Here  again  it  would  be  possible  to  correct  the  bias  of 
the  replies  from  such  a  selected  group  by  the  study  of  fifty  or  a 
hundred  individuals  chosen  quite  at  random.  But  this  has 
never  been  done. 

For  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  study  already  quoted,  there 
were  received  about  five  hundred  replies  from  classes  in  normal 
schools,  colleges  and  academies,  and  about  three  hundred  re- 
plies from  individuals.  The  group  of  students  certainly  does 
not  represent  the  general  population.  How  the  three  hundred 
were  selected  we  are  not  told,  nor  what  proportion  they  were 
of  the  total  number  to  whom  the  questions  were  sent.  There 
was  not  a  single  question  asked  in  the  list  that  was  answered 
by  all  of  the  787*  whose  replies  are  the  basis  of  the  article. 
Out  of  the  total  number  for  each  sex  the  following  numbers 
(in  percentages)  replied  to  the  different  questions  which  the 
author  discusses. 

Each  number  is  the  percentage  that  the  number  of  answers  to  some 
one  question  was  to  the  number  replying  to  the  questions  as  a  whole. 


lestion 

.     Males. 

Females. 

Question. 

Males. 

Females, 

I 

17.0 

28.9 

14 

II. 4 

II. 7 

2 

40.2 

48.9 

IS 

29.3 

41-5 

3 

132 

35-5 

16 

15-0 

22.8 

4 

13-2 

14.8 

17 

49.9 

77.1 

5 

10.3 

17.5 

18 

97.4 

97.3 

6 

19.9 

35-2 

19 

85.6 

68.6 

7 

23.6 

20.7 

20 

105.0 

77.1 

8 

29.1 

55-4 

21 

63.1 

63.2 

9 

72.7 

48.0 

22 

74.2 

|4-7 

10 

53.4 

49.6 

23 

81.2 

64.8 

II 

19.9 

47-5 

24 

72.4 

61.9 

12 

24.6 

19-3 

25 

44.9 

51. 1 

13 

34.7 

53-9 

♦The  author  does  not  even  take  pains  to  make  this  number  clear.  In  one 
place  we  read,  '827  (replies)  have  been  received  .  .  .  these  answers  have  been 
grouped  and  condensed  and  the  results  will  be  given'  (p.  67),  and  two  pages 
later  we  read :  '341  males  and  446  females  answered  part  or  all  of  it'  (the 
syllabus  of  questions).  My  percentages  are  based  on  this  second  statement, 
to  avoid  any  possibility  of  injustice.  From  the  fact  that  one  percentage  thus 
computed  is  105,  I  regard  it  as  likely  that  the  827  is  correct  and  that  my 
percentages  are  even  too  large  by  5  per  cent. 


SOURCES   OF   INFORMATION  35 

These  percentages  range  from  10.3  to  105  for  males  and 
from  II. 7  to  97.3  for  females.  The  averages  are:  Males,  44; 
females,  47.  The  variabilities  {A.  D.)  are  24.7  and  16.8. 
'There  are  marked  sex  differences  in  the  number  replying,  the 
extremes  being,  women  66  per  cent,  as  many  replies  as  men 
and  269  per  cent,  as  many.  These  facts  demonstrate  that 
chance  is  not  the  cause  for  the  number  of  replies  and  failures  to 
reply  and  that  some  real  principles  of  selection  do  determine 
them. 

It  is  incredible  that  the  85  per  cent,  of  men  who  do  not 
answer  at  all  the  question,  'Were  there  impulses  to  reform 
self,  others,  religion,  state,  society,  etc?'  had  the  same  feelings 
about  the  matter  at  adolescence  as  the  15  per  cent,  who  did 
answer,  and  of  whom  practically  all  (approximately  97  per 
cent.)  say,  'Yes.'  The  probability  indeed  is  that  of  the  85  per 
cent,  few  or  none  had  felt  such  impulses  to  any  noticeable  ex- 
tent and  that  the  real  affirmatives  amongst  the  341  males 
replying  to  the  question  should  be  reckoned  at  from  15  to  20 
per  cent.  This  percentage  calculated  from  the  interested  and 
from  academic  students  would  be  further  reduced  if  mechanics, 
day  laborers,  clerks  and  the  rest  of  the  youth  of  the  land  were 
studied.  The  figures  for  the  girls  are  of  the  same  order  of 
magnitude.  Yet  the  author  says :  'This  feeling  ...  is  very 
characteristic  of  adolescence.' 

I  have  attempted  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  partiality  of  the 
sampling  in  these  studies  as  a  whole  by  computing  from  all 
such  articles  in  the  volumes  of  the  American  Journal  of  Psy- 
chology and  Pedagogical  Seminary  from  1896  to  1900,  the  pro- 
portion that  the  number  of  individuals  replying  is  of  the  num- 
ber of  individuals  questioned,  and  the  proportion  that  the 
number  of  answers  to  each  question  is  of  the  numbers  of 
individuals  replying  to  the  questionnaire  as  a  whole.  Such  an 
estimate  cannot  be  made  because  the  ignorance  or  neglect  of  the 
fallacy  of  unfair  selection  of  individuals  for  report  has  been  so 
great  that  only  one  article  in  the  eight  volumes  gives  clearly  the 
number  of  individuals  questioned,  and  not  even  one  gives  full 


36  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

information  regarding  the  number  of  replies  received  to  each  de- 
tailed question.  Some  do  not  even  give  the  number  of  individ- 
uals replying  to  the  questions  as  a  whole.  In  the  one  case  where 
the  number  of  those  questioned  is  given,  less  than  one  sixth 
replied  (15.67  per  cent.). 

In  the  third  place,  the  use  of  replies  to  questions  and  of 
school  compositions  involves  the  exercise  of  much  personal 
opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  each  report.  Different  individ- 
uals will  differ  somewhat  even  in  their  measurement  of  a  line, 
will  differ  markedly  in  their  estimate  of  the  intelligence  shown 
in  any  test,  and  would  certainly  differ  in  their  rating  of  the 
replies  to  such  complex  and  subtle  questions  as  many  of  those 
on  page  30,  or  of  the  school  compositions  on  similar  top- 
ics. The  statements  finally  used  to  inspire  conclusions  are 
thus  a  compound  of  the  actual  reports  and  the  subjective  bias 
of  the  compiler.  This  could  be  avoided  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  having  several  unbiased  clerks  go  over  the  papers.  By 
combining  their  opinions  one  could  eliminate  personal  idiosyn- 
crasies of  judgment.     This  has  not  been  done. 

In  the  fourth  place  the  progress  from  a  set  of  statements 
about  individuals  to  a  statement  about  a  group  including  them 
is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  simple  addition.  There  is  a 
fairly  complex  science  of  mental  statistics  which  has  been 
found  necessary  to  keep  students  out  of  pitfalls.  Failure  to 
take  advantage  of  it  is  always  a  suspicious  characteristic  in 
any  method  of  studying. groups. 

Conclusions  about  the  facts  studied  only  indirectly  through 
the  reports  of  incompetent  observers,  in  the  case  of  individuals 
representing  a  partial  and  undefined  selection,  compiled  by  a 
single  and  possibly  prejudiced  student,  without  the  knowledge 
of  the  technique  and  logic  of  statistics,  are  unreliable.  They 
may  be  true;  they  may  be  false;  they  are  probably  a  mixture. 
But  we  cannot  know  how  true  or  false  they  are. 

In  spite  of  these  criticisms,  and  others  whose  justice  Presi- 
dent Hall  and  other  leaders  in  this  type  of  investigation  would 
readily  admit,  the  fact  remains  that  we  are  here  dealing  with 


SOURCES    OF   INFORMATION  37 

reports  which  at  least  try  to  find  out  what  human  nature  is  in 
its  rich  concrete  details,  and  which  have  been  made  by  serious 
students  under  the  direction  of  a  psychologist  of  genius. 
Respect  for  their  aim  if  not  for  their  results,  and  for  his  ability 
if  not  for  his  method,  requires  due  consideration  for  these 
reports.  It  would  be  futile  to  pass  these  reports  by  because 
they  lack  careful  experimentation  upon  human  instincts,  for 
so  do  practically  all  others. 

They  have  therefore  been  searched  for  observations  and 
opinions  concerning  the  unlearned  tendencies  of  man.  Any 
definite  statements  which  they  contain  as  to  what  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  author  in  question,  unlearned  in  human  fears, 
sympathies,  plays,  behavior  toward  water,  stones,  trees,  clouds, 
flowers  and  the  like,  will,  as  a  rule,  be  quoted  unless  it  is 
demonstrably  based  on  an  improper  use  of  testimony.  They 
will  be  quoted  very  rarely,  however,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
in  all  their  thousands  of  pages  there  are  very,  very  few  definite 
statements  as  to  what,  after  all,  is  instinctive  in  the  behavior 
in  question.  A  student  reads  hundreds  of  reports  of  the  be- 
havior of  children  toward  dogs,  for  example,  but  at  the  end 
is  unable  to  say  whether  children  of  any  assigned  age,  apart 
from  experience,  do  or  do  not  run  from,  or  go  to,  dogs. 

OTHER  SOURCES 

Besides  the  biographies  of  children  and  the  censuses  of 
anecdotes  and  opinions  made  by  Stanley  Hall's  pupils,  there 
are  observations  and  discussions  of  varying  degrees  of  merit 
scattered  throughout  the  literature  of  biology,  psychology, 
anthropology,  sociology  and  education.  These  have  been  util- 
ized so  far  as  I  have  found  them.  Such  observations  of  chil- 
dren as  have  been  reported  by  such  deliberate  students  of 
original  nature  as  James  ['93],  Robinson  ['91,  '93,  '94], 
Cooley  ['02],  Kirkpatrick  ['03],  and  McDougall  ['08]  are 
specially  deserving  of  attention  from  any  reader  who  wishes 
to  test  critically  the  account  given  in  this  volume. 

There  is  a   possibility   that   critical   examination  of  the 


38  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE  OF    MAN 

reports  of  the  behavior  of  primitive  groups  would  disclose  orig- 
inal tendencies  which  are  masked  by  the  artificial  situations,  or 
overgrown  by  the  acquired  habits,  of  more  civilized  life.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  even  the  most  primitive 
races  lead  lives  whose  situations  are  in  large  measure  consti- 
tuted by  the  customs  of  the  tribe,  the  presence  of  tools,  and 
other  products  of  learning,  and  that  in  many  respects  they  early 
acquire  habits  so  remote  from  original  nature  as  effectually 
to  conceal  it.  The  sex  instincts,  for  example,  seem  to  be  re- 
directed by  almost  as  elaborate  a  network  of  customs  in  their 
case  as  in  ours.  The  detailed  reports  of  travelers  and  field- 
workers  I  have  consulted  only  very  casually.  The  standard 
summaries  of  primitive  man's  behavior,  especially  any  accounts 
of  his  behavior  in  childhood,  I  have  examined,  but  with  slight 
results  in  the  shape  of  definite  evidence  or  judgments  about 
unlearned  tendencies.  I  regret  that  I  have  been  unable  to  go 
through  the  detailed  reports  concerning  particular  tribes. 

The  statements  made  about  man's  original  tendencies  in 
such  sociological  books  and  short  reports  as  I  have  examined 
are  rarely  suitable  for  direct  use  here.  The  distinction  be- 
tween inherent  and  acquired  traits  is  rarely  made  a  prime  con- 
sideration by  their  authors.  The  student  of  the  concrete  facts 
of  human  nature  will,  however,  get  many  hints  concerning  the 
probable  original  equipment  of  capacities  and  direction  of  in- 
terests from  the  mattert-of-fact  sociologists.  He  will  also 
enrich  his  general  sense  of  human  nature  greatly. 

The  literature  of  animal  behavior  is,  of  course,  funda- 
mental, as  a  means  of  understanding  the  general  features  of  un- 
learned tendencies,  their  place  in  nature,  their  physiological 
.basis,  and  their  development  up  to  man.  There  will  be  few 
quotations  from  this  literature  because  the  original  nature 
of  man  only  is  the  present  topic,  but  I  trust  that  my  descrip- 
tions of  human  instincts  and  capacities  everywhere  rest  on  a 
proper  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  comparative  psychology. 

In  spite  of  efforts  to  do  full  justice  to  what  has  been  written 
on  human  instincts,  I  must  frankly  confess  that  nothing  beyond 


SOURCES    OF   INFORMATION  39 

my  own  personal  observation  and  reflection  can  be  advanced 
to  support  the  great  majority  of  the  statements  which  consti- 
tute the  inventory  and  description  of  man's  original  nature 
given  in  the  following  chapters. 

THE  INSECURITY  OF  PRESENT  INFORMATION 

It  would  perhaps  be  wiser  to  abandon  the  effort  to  define 
man's  original  responses  and  the  situations  to  which  they  are 
bound.  There  would  probably  be  an  enormous  range  within 
even  expert  opinion  about  which  the  original  responses  are 
to  even  such  common  situations  as  cats,  dogs,  water,  fire, 
thunder,  lightning  or  the  dark.  It  is  then  clearly  impossible 
to  guarantee  the  accuracy  of  any  inventory  that  anyone  could 
now  make.  The  facts  have  not  been  studied  long  enough  or 
by  careful  enough  methods.  Moreover,  as  one  tries  to  come 
to  some  conclusion  about  this  or  that  tendency,  he  finds,  as 
has  been  hinted  already,  almost  insuperable  obstacles  in  the 
artificiality  of  modern  life,  the  possible  transitoriness  of  the 
original  tendencies,  and  their  inhibition  or  immediate  trans- 
formation by  acquired  tendencies. 

A  modern  home  in  a  modern  community  eliminates  alto- 
gether many  of  the  situations  to  which  original  human  nature 
would  probably  show  clean-cut  responses  and  modifies  almost 
all  those  which  it  does  not  eliminate.  Civilization  is  to  the 
original  nature  of  man  as  a  species  somewhat  as  a  European 
capital  would  be  to  the  habits  of  an  Eskimo.  The  infer- 
ence from  his  behavior  in  Paris  to  what  his  ordinary  life  had 
been  would  be  complicated  and  unsafe;  so  with  the  inference 
from  what  babies  do  in  nurseries,  children  in  schools  and  men 
in  industry,  sport  and  politics,  to  what  their  original  tenden- 
cies were. 

If  a  tendency  persists  over  several  years,  as  do  the  in- 
stincts of  sex  or  the  readiness  to  start,  shrink  and  be  afraid 
in  the  dark,  it  may  show  itself,  at  least  in  a  distorted  and  com- 
plicated form.  But  if  it  passes  after  a  brief  epoch  of  efficiency, 
it  may,  under  the  conditions  of  modern  life,  never  show  itself 


40  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

at  alL  Thus  the  tendency  to  climb  and  perch  in  trees  seems 
to  be  original  in  man,  but  does  not  show  itself  at  all  univer- 
sally in  city  children.  The  writer  has  some  reason  to  think 
that  retrieving  is  instinctive  with  children  for  a  brief  period  in 
the  second  or  third  year.  The  fact  that  no  one  else  has  re- 
corded the  possibility  would  in  this  case  be  of  little  weight, 
for,  under  ordinary  conditions  today,  possibly  not  one  child 
in  four  has,  during  its  brief  ascendency,  any  chance  to  display  it. 

After  the  first  half-year  or  less,  original  nature  and  nurture 
cooperate  almost  inextricably.  By  the  time  that  an  original 
tendency  is  ripe  its  situation  may  already  have  acquired  bonds 
with  other  responses  than  those  nature  provides.  Thus,  al- 
though for  many  reasons  it  seems  fairly  certain  that  being 
alone  in  the  dark  is  objectionable  to  the  original  nature  of  chil- 
dren from  say  three  to  eight,  children  of  that  age  who  have 
hitherto  been  consistently  kept  comfortable  when  alone  in  the 
dark  may  seem  to  show  just  the  opposite. 

An  original  tendency  may  also  have  been  subdued  by 
mere  lack  of  exercise,  or  by  having  its  exercise  result  in  discom- 
fort, or  in  some  symbol  for  or  warning  of  discomfort.  Thus, 
it  is  almost  certain  that  the  original  response  toward  a  live 
chicken  is,  if  one  is  hungry,  to  chase,  capture  and  devour  it, 
but  it  is  almost  equally  certain  that  not  one  ten-year-old  in  a 
hundred  in  New  York  City  would  so  respond. 

An  original  tendency  may  also,  though  preserved  in  part, 
be  amended  into  behavior  from  which  it  can  be  analyzed  out 
only  by  an  elaborate  study  of  life-histories  and  acute  inference 
from  what  experience  has  done  to  what  there  was  at  the  start 
for  experience  to  work  on.  Thus,  the  personal  adornment  and 
display  of  young  people  is  doubtless  ultimately  traceable  to 
original  tendencies,  but  just  what  those  tendencies  comprise 
can  be  figured  out  only  by  subtracting  the  effects  of  centuries 
of  traditional  millinery,  warfare,  and  romantic  conventions. 

Lack  of  observations  of  human  behavior  and  the  difficulty 
in  interpreting  the  facts  that  have  been  observed  which  is  the 
consequence  of  a  civilized  environment,  the  transitoriness  of 


SOURCES    OF    INFORMATION  4I 

instincts  and  the  early  incessant  and  intimate  interaction  of 
nature  and  nurture,  thus  baffle  the  cataloguer  of  original 
tendencies. 

The  need  for  an  inventory  of  man's  original  nature,  how- 
ever, is  very  great.  It  is  needed  as  a  basis,  not  only  for  educa- 
tional, but  also  for  economic,  political,  ethical  and  religious 
theories.  Indeed,  all  the  sciences  of  human  nature,  from  med- 
icine to  literary  criticism,  demand  of  the  psychologist  an  ac- 
curate account  of  how,  apart  from  all  training,  man  would  re- 
spond to  all  possible  situations.  The  physician  should  know 
whether  original  nature  lets  a  child  eat  too  much  and  chew  it  not 
enough ;  the  criminologist  should  know  the  relative  shares  of 
nature  and  nurture  in  the  production  of  assault  or  theft;  the 
statesman  should  know  how  far  the  efforts  of  men  to  gain 
wealth  are  rooted  in  an  instinctive  love  of  possession — of 
property  as  such — and  how  far  they  are  caused  by  the  love  of 
generalized  power;  the  student  of  religion  inquires  whether 
there  are,  apart  from  training,  any  tendencies  to  respond  to  the 
world-spirit. 

Let  it  be  admitted  that  the  inventory  to  be  given  here  is 
only  a  probable  one, — that  the  writer's  personal  judgment, 
possibly  his  mere  intuition,  is  often  the  final  cause  for  admit- 
ting a  tendency  as  original  or  excluding  it  as  a  product  of 
learning, — and  that  almost  every  statement  that  will  be 
made  is  more  properly  a  question  for  investigation  than  a 
doctrine  to  be  assumed  true  in  the  social  control  of  children 
and  men.  Even  so  provisional  an  account  is  likely  to  be 
superior  to  the  extravagances  and  superstitions  in  which  edu- 
cational theories  and  so-called  common  sense  abounds.  So  I 
offer  it  for  whatever  it  may  be  worth.  For  the  reader's  con- 
venience this  inventory  of  original  nature  will  l^e  presented  for 
the  most  part  dogmatically.  Any  adequate  discussion  of  the 
evidence  for  and  against  each  item  of  it  would  simply  burden 
him  in  each  case  with  a  mass  of  observations  and  opinions  of 
all  degrees  of  relevance  and  merit,  the  sublimation  of  which 
into  a  definite  probability  would  be  intolerably  tedious.     The 


42  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

reader  will,  I  beg,  remember  that  in  spite  of  this  dogmatic 
form,  the  statements  to  be  made  are  only  the  best  answers  the 
writer  can  give  to  questions  which  science  at  present  should 
perhaps  ask  rather  than  answer  at  all. 

Finally,  the  inventory  to  be  given  here  makes  no  pretence 
of  completeness.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  limited  definitely  to 
the  aim  of  giving  a  general  sense  of  what  may  be  expected  of 
man's  original  nature,  such  as  is  needed  to  guide  educational 
theory  and  practice. 


•■\ 


chapter  v 

Responses  of  Sensitivity,  Attention  and  Gross 
Bodily  Control 

The  arrangement  of  my  inventory  will  be  modified  from 
that  which  a  strictly  scientific  classification  would  suggest,  so  as 
to  fit  the  reader's  convenience,  and  to  make  connections  with 
the  treatment  of  instincts  and  capacities  in  present  psycho- 
logical literature.  Ideally  the  arrangement  should  be  according 
to  some  rational  grouping  of  the  situations  life  offers,  or  of 
the  responses  which  men  can  make.  I  have  only  very  roughly 
approximated  the  latter  sort  of  arrangement,  the  various  ten- 
dencies to  connect  situation  and  response  which  I  list*  being 
grouped  according  to  the  responses  in  question,  as: — 

those  resulting  in  sensitivities 
those  resulting  in  attention 
those  resulting  in  gross  bodily  control 
those  resulting  in  food'-getting  and  habitation 
those  resulting  in  fear,  fighting  and  anger 
those  resulting  in  human  intercourse 
those  resulting  in  satisfaction  and  discomfort 
those  resulting  in  minor  bodily  movements  and  cerebral  con- 
nections 
those  resulting  in  the  emotions  and  their  expression 
those  resulting  in  consciousness,  learning  and  remembering 

♦Certain  events  connect,  apart  from  all  training,  with  movements  of  man's 
body  which  are  fully  explained  by  mechanics  or  hydrostatics,  such  as  a  baby's 
falling  when  it  is  dropped,  or  being  squeezed  when  sat  upon.  Such  connections 
whereby  the  animal  acts  in  the  same  way,  whether  alive  or  dead,  will  of  course 
not  be  considered  here.  Nor  will  the  connections  of  which  current  physiology 
already  gives  an  account,  such  as  the  knee-jerk,  the  contraction  of  the  pupil 
in  bright  light,  the  absorption  of  oxygen  by  the  red  blood-corpuscles,  and  the 
like. 

43 


44  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

This  grouping  will  not  be  rigidly  adhered  to,  and  in  at 
least  one  case,  the  connections  leading  to  responses  of  social 
intercourse,  the  group  is  as  truly  of  connections  leading  from 
the  behavior  of  other  human  beings. 

SENSORY   CAPACITIES 

To  certain  situations  man  responds  originally  by  special 
changes  in  the  first  sensory  neurones  and,  through  these,  by 
special  changes  in  other  neurones.  He  is  thus  affected  by  the 
situation  'a.  certain  substance  in  touch  with  the  olfactory  mem- 
brane' as  he  is  not  by  the  situation  'that  substance  in  touch  with 
his  fingers.'  To  the  general  pressure,  absorption  of  heat  and 
what  not  that  the  substance  causes  in  both  cases,  there  are  added, 
in  the  former  case,  special  effects,  notably  the  excitement  of 
certain  neurones  giving  the  sensation  of  smell.  Well-known 
illustrations  of  original  tendencies  to  sensitivity  are  the  capaci- 
ties to  receive  special  impressions  via  the  cones  of  the  retina 
from  light  waves  of  450  to  750  million  million  vibrations  per 
second,  that  are  not  received  from  those  of  350  million  million 
vibrations  (the  infra-red)  ;  and  to  be  influenced  by  air  waves 
of  30  to  30,000  vibrations  per  second  as  one  is  not  by  air  waves 
of  50,000  and  over  per  second,  and  the  like.  All  the  remain- 
ing original  tendencies  hang  by  these  tendencies  to  be  sensi- 
tive to  certain  situations  in  ways  in  which  a  stone,  a  drop  of 
water,  or  a  potato-plant  is  not.  Sensitivity,  or  impressibility, 
or  receptivity,  is  the  necessary  preliminary  to  attention,  ap- 
proach, flight,  and  all  other  features  of  original  intellect  and 
character. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  neurone-action  which  is 
set  up  by  a  given  stimulus  in  touch  with  a  given  sense- 
organ  in  a  trained  adult  can  fairly  be  taken  as  that  by  which 
he  would  have  responded  to  the  same  situation  originally. 
Even  in  sensory  capacities  original  and  eventual  nature  differ. 
The  states  of  consciousness  which  vibrations  of  the  ether  of 
a  given  rate,  or  the  air-vibrations  caused  by  a  given  tuning 
fork,  or  the  presence  on  the  tip  of  the  tongue  of  a  tiny  drop 


SENSITIVITY,    ATTENTION    AND   BODILY   CONTROL  45 

of  saturated  salt-solution,  and  the  like,  provoke  by  their  orig- 
inal connections  are  probably  very  unlike  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness which  the  trained  analytical  psychologist  knows. 
The  latter  does  not,  by  attending  to  one  after  another  feature  of 
the  sensed  world,  eliminate  the  results  of  acquired  connections. 
On  the  contrary,  his  analysis  itself  occurs  precisely  by  acquiring 
new  connections.  The  overtone  which  one  hears  along  with 
the  fundamental,  after  training  in  getting  it  separately  and  in 
listening  for  it  in  the  complex,  is  created  by  forming,  with  a 
part  of  the  stimulus,  connections  which  that  part  originally 
lacked  and  so  letting  it  produce  a  consciousness  which  it  did 
not  originally  produce.  The  original  capacities  of  sensation 
do  not  give  us  the  clear  sounds,  colors,  pressures,  degrees  of 
heat  and  cold,  and  the  like,  in  which  long  experience  has  taught 
us  to  feel  the  world.  To  get  an  idea  of  the  way  the  world 
would  be  sensed  apart  from  training,  we  must  subtract  all 
that  we  know  about  it,  and  all  the  definite  'things,'  'qualities' 
and  'relations'  which  have,  in  the  course  of  training,  been 
analyzed  out  of  the  flux  of  gross  sensations.  We  must  take  as 
types,  the  sensations  which  an  adult  psychologist  gets  from 
suffocation,  heart-burn,  itching  or  nausea  rather  than  those 
which  he  gets  from  a  black  dot,  a  loo-vibration  tuning  fork,  or 
a  band  of  spectral  light. 

For  educational  theory  and  practice,  indeed,  it  is  often 
more  instructive  to  consider  what  is  not  original  in  human  sen- 
sitiveness to  events  than  what  is.  That  'dead'  and  'bead'  are 
seen  by  an  adult  reader  as  they  are  not  by  the  beginner; 
that  >'  does  not  look  the  same  to  one  who  cannot  add  or  count 
as  it  does  to  us;  that  the  separate  tones  in  a  chord  may  not 
l)e  heard  by  original  nature — such  facts  as  these  are  the  most 
significant  results  which  a  student  of  education  gets  from  sur- 
veying sensory  capacities.  Just  as  the  training  of  the  expert 
musician  makes  him  hear  a  symphony  as  the  beginner  does 
not,  or  as  the  expert  tea-taster  has  acquired  tastes  which  the 
same  objects  once  did  not  give, — so  training  in  reading, 
mathematics  and  geography  makes  a  pupil  see  letters,  words. 


46  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

geometrical  forms,  magnitudes,  collections,  maps  and  photo- 
graphs anew ;  and  so  the  general  training  of  infancy  changes 
the  original  perceptions  in  response  to  the  different  vibration- 
rates  of  light,  degrees  of  temperature,  or  amplitudes  of  sound 
waves. 

With  this  caution  the  student  is  referred  to  the  standard 
accounts  of  the  physiology  and  psychology  of  the  sensory  ca- 
pacities for  details  concerning  what  outside  events  are  'sensed' 
by  man  and  what  events  in  his  sense-organs  and  associated 
neurones  correspond  to  this  ^sensing.' 

ORIGINAL    ATTENTIVENESS 

Of  the  situations  to  which  man  is  sensitive  some  originally 
excite  the  further  responses — of  disposing  him,  especially  his 
sense  organs  and  central  nervous  system,  to  be  more  em- 
phatically impressed  thereby — which  we  call  responses  of  at- 
tention to  the  situations  in  question.  Thus,  he  moves  his  head 
and  eyes  so  that  the  light  rays  from  a  bright-colored  object 
moving  across  the  visual  field  are  kept  upon  or  near  the  spot 
of  clear  vision.  The  features  which  are  so  selected  for  special 
influence  upon  man  vary  with  sex  and  age,  but  are  substan- 
tially covered  by  the  rule  that  man  is  originally  attentive  (i) 
to  sudden  change  and  sharp  contrasts  and  (2)"  to  all  the  situa- 
tions to  which  he  has  further  tendencies  to  respond,  as  by  flight, 
pursuit,  repulsion,  play  and  the  like. 

Since,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  following  chapters,  man  has 
tendencies  to  respond  to  an  enormous  range  of  situations  by 
visual  exploration,  manipulation,  curiosity  and  experimenta- 
tion, his  attentiveness  is  omnivorous  to  an  extent  not  ap- 
proached by  any  other  animals  save  the  monkeys,  and  far  from 
equalled  by  them.  Very  early  the  human  infant  devotes  a  large 
fraction  of  his  waking  hours  to  watching  what  is  and  happens 
in  his  neighborhood.  When  he  gains  control  of  reachmg  and 
grasping  he  examines  what  he  can  move.  When  he  gains 
power  to  move  about,  he  attends  to  almost  every  object  that 
he  can  get  to  until  its  possibilities  as  a  stimulus  to  manipula- 


SENSITIVITY,    ATTENTION    AND   BODILY    CONTROL  47 

tion  and  experimentation  are  exhausted.  In  the  meantime, 
parts  of  his  own  body  and  the  sounds  that  he  and  the  persons 
and  things  about  him  make  have  been  selected  from  the  total 
medleys  in  which  they  inhere  by  the  preparation  of  the  sense- 
organs,  and  perhaps  of  the  neurones  associated  therewith,  to  be 
stimulated  by  this  or  that  sight  or  sound  or  touch. 

One  is  tempted  to  assert  that  man  is  originally  attentive  to 
everything  until  its  novelty  wears  off.  But  certain  notable 
lacks  show  that  original  attentiveness  is  the  sum  of  many  par- 
ticular tendencies  and  not  an  indifferent  general  capacity. 
For  example,  man  lacks  the  attentiveness  to  small  differences 
in  smells,  or  small  intrusions  of  new  smells  into  a  familiar 
medley,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  many  mammals. 

GROSS  BODILY  CONTROL 

How  far  man's  management  of  his  body  in  holding  up  his 
head,  sitting,  standing,  walking,  running,  stooping,  jumping 
up,  jumping  down,  leaping  at,  crouching,  lying  down,  rolling 
over,  climbing,  dodging,  stooping  to  pick  up,  raising  oneself 
again,  balancing,  clinging,  pushing  with  arms  and  with  legs, 
pulling  with  arms,  and  in  such  other  movements  of  position, 
locomotion  and  the  displacement  of  large  objects  as  man  has  in 
common  with  the  primates  in  general,  is  unlearned,  is  still  a 
disputed  question.  Reputable  opinion  can  be  cited  in  support 
of  remote  extremes. 

It  appears  to  the  writer  that  the  contribution  from  training 
is  slight,  that  these  accomplishments  are  in  origin  much  more 
like  breathing,  winking  or  sucking,  than  like  playing  tennis, 
dancing  or  swimming.  The  case  of  walking  is  instructive. 
Here,  although,  under  the  conditions  of  civilized  family  life, 
children  appear  to  learn,  or  even  to  be  taught,  to  walk,  it  has 
been  shown  that  the  appearance  is  illusory.*  The  baby's  trials 
with  varying  and  increasing  success  are  not  the  causes  of  a 
habit,  but  the  symptoms  of  a  waxing  instinct.     The  parent's 

*See,   for  example,   Kirkpatrick   ['03!.   pp.   79-81;   Trettien   t'oo],  p.   42; 
Woodworth  ['03],  p.  315. 


48  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

tuition  does  not  create  a  tendency,  but  only  stimulates  or  re- 
wards it. 

How  easily  a  clear  case  of  unlearnedness  may  remain  un- 
observed is  shown  by  the  now  well-known  clinging  reaction  of 
the  infant  in  the  first  week  of  life.  The  facts  as  described 
by  Robinson,  who  first  noted  this  instinct,  are  typical : 

"Finding  myself  placed  in  a  position  in  which  material 
was  abundant,  and  available  for  reasonable  experiment,  I  com- 
menced a  series  of  systematic  observations  with  the  purpose 
of  finding  out  what  proportion  of  young  infants  had  a  notice- 
able power  of  grip,  and  what  was  the  extent  of  the  power.  I 
have  made  now  records  of  upwards  of  sixty  cases  in  which 
the  children  were  under  a  month  old,  and  in  at  least  half 
of  these  the  experiment  was  tried  within  an  hour  of  birth. 
The  results  as  given  below  are,  as  I  have  already  indicated, 
both  curious  and  unexpected. 

"In  every  instance,  with  only  two  exceptions,  the  child  was 
able  to  hang  on  to  the  finj^er  or  a  small  stick  three-quarters 
of  an  inch  in  diameter  by  its  hands,  like  an  acrobat  from  a  hor- 
izontal bar,  and  sustain  the  whole  weight  of  its  body  for  at  least 
ten  seconds.  In  twelve  cases,  in  infants  under  an  hour  old, 
half  a  minute  passed  before  the  grasp  relaxed,  and  in  three  or 
four  nearly  a  minute.  When  about  four  days  old  I  found  that 
the  strength  had  increased,  and  that  nearly  all.  when  tried  at 
this  age.  could  sustain  their  weight  for  half  a  minute."  ['91, 
p.  837  f.] 

It  must  be  remembered  further  that  gradualness  in  appear- 
ing and  imperfections  in  early  manifestations  are  entirely  con- 
sistent with  unlearnedness.  The  'perfecting'  of  a  tendency 
may  come  from  the  mere  inner  growth  that  time  implies  as 
well  as  from  exercise  and  tuition.  Thus  the  reactions  of  run- 
ning, crouching  and  chirring  by  chicks  when  a  large  object 
is  thrown  at  them  are  surely  unlearned  but  develop  gradually. 
The  reactions  of  roosters  in  combat  are  surely  unlearned  but 
are  at  the  start  so  'imperfect'  that  unless  one  traces  their  be- 
havior continuously  he  will  hardly  even  recognize  the  early 
manifestations.  (These  are  that  two  chicks,  as  young  even  as 
six  days,  will  suddenly  rush  at  each  other,  face  each  other  for 


SENSITIVITY,    ATTENTION    AND   BODILY   CONTROL  49 

a  moment  and  then  go  about  their  previous  business.)  'Im- 
perfection' at  the  start  and  gradualness  in  development  are  the 
rule  rather  than  the  exception  with  all  original  tendencies. 

I  judge  therefore  that  children  gain  power  to  manage  their 
bodies  in  connection  with  the  movements  listed  above,  as  re- 
quired by  the  ordinary  exigencies  of  an  animal-like  life  in  the 
woods,  largely  by  the  inner  development  of  original  tendencies.* 
Just  how  largely  cannot  be  said.  I  do  not  assert  that  man,  or 
any  of  the  mammals,  would  manage  his  body  as  well  without 
experience  as  with  it,  or  that  all  the  gross  bodily  manipula- 
tions listed  are  as  well  developed  by  original  nature  as  walking 
is.  But  the  notion  that  these  activities  develop  by  trial  and 
success  and  imitation  wholly,  or  with  slight  assistance  from 
some  very  indefinite  'predispositions/  does  seem  indefensible 
as  an  account  of  their  causation  in  the  children  whom  I  have 
had  opportunity  to  observe.  The  'predispositions'  can,  on  the 
contrary,  be  relied  on  to  produce  the  behavior  with  a  very  small 
amount  of  assistance  from  the  pains  of  stumbling,  falling, 
going  in  the  wrong  direction  and  the  like,  and  with  no  assist- 
ance at  all  from  imitation. 

Darwin  long  ago  noted  that  'everyone  protects  himself 
when  falling  to  the  ground  by  extending  his  arms'  ['72,  p.  31]. 
Moore  ['96],  observed  that  a  child  who  had  never  fallen  or 
been  hurt  through  lack  of  support  nevertheless  clutched  the 
person  holding  him  when  the  wagon  lurched  or  when  he  was 
lifted  during  sleep.  A  child  very  early  changes  an  object  from 
one  hand  to  another,  stoops  and  stands  up,  and  the  like,  so  far 
as  one  can  see,  by  original  coordinations.  It  is  my  prophecy 
that  very  many  such  original  powers  of  bodily  control  will 
be  found  by  proper  experimentation. 

♦If  this  is  the  fact,  the  customary  incitements  of  the  nursery  are  largely 
useless  and  possibly  harmful.  So  also  with  many  of  the  maternal  precautions 
against  childish  adventures  in  locomotion. 


chapter  vi 

Food   Getting,   Protective   Responses,   and  Anger 

FOOD    getting 

Eating. — Of  the  early  suckling  and  seeking  the  breast,  and 
the  various  original  responses  to  objects  once  they  are  in  the 
mouth,  nothing  need  be  said  here,  save  that  sucking  move- 
ments at  a  sweet  taste,  separating  the  posterior  portions  of  the 
tongue  and  palate  at  a  bitter  taste,  spitting  and  letting  drool 
out  of  the  mouth  at  very  sour,  very  salt,  acrid,  bitter,  and  oily 
objects,  and  turning  the  head  to  one  side  in  rejection  of  food 
when  satiated,  are  partial  foundations  of  the  bodily  expressions 
of  enjoyment  and  disgust  in  general. 

Reaching,  grasping  and  putting  into  the  mouth  deserve  moreJ 
consideration  here  because  of  the  knowledge  of  the  external 
world  to  which  they  lead.  Reaching  is  not  a  single  instinct, 
but  includes  at  least  three  somewhat  different  responses  to  three 
very  different  situations.  First,  to  the  situation  'not  being 
closely  cuddled,'  there  is,  in  young  infants,  the  tendency  to 
respond  by  reaching  and  clutching,  especially  when  any  element 
of  agitation  is  added  to  the  situation.  Second,  to  the  situation, 
'an  object  attended  to  and  approximately  within  reaching  dis- 
ance,'*  there  is  the  tendency  to  reach,  maintaining  the  exten- 

*It  has  generally  been  assumed  that  man  has  to  learn  to  respond 
appropriately  to  distance — .that,  for  example,  a  child  will  reach  for  the 
mOon  as  readily  as  for  a  similar  bright  object  a  foot  or  so  away.  But  I 
am  unable  to  verify  this  opinion.  Of  perhaps  fifty  observant  parents  whom 
I  have  questioned,  not  one  could  be  sure  that  his  children  ever  reached 
for  the  moon.  The  apparent  cases  of  children  reaching  for  objects  quite 
out  of  reach  seem  referable  to  the  diffuse  waving  of  arms  in  excitement, 
the  holding  out  of  arms  toward  a  familiar  person  (not  to  take,  but  to  be 
taken),  or  the  later  pointing  at  objects. 

5» 


FOOD   GETTING,    PR#TECTIVE    RESPONSES,   ANGER  5 1 

sion  until  the  object  is  grasped.  Third,  to  the  situation,  *an 
attractive  object  seen,'  there  is  the  tendency  to  reach  and 
point  at,  often  with  the  addition,  as  James  notes,  of  "a  pecuhar 
sound  expressive  of  desire." 

In  an  environment  in  which  household  utensils  and  toys 
largely  replace  berry  bushes  and  scraps  of  food  from  the  family 
feedings,  and  in  which  regular  meals  are  supplied  according  to 
more  or  less  civilized  customs,  reaching,  grasping  and  putting 
in  the  mouth  shift  largely  from  what  is  probably  their  primary 
function  of  preparation  for,  and  first  steps  in,  food  getting,  and 
blend  with  the  general  manipulation  of  small  objects.  The 
accompanying  visual,  tactile  and  gustatory  examination  of  the 
object  blends  similarly  with  the  general  tendency  to  get  experi- 
ence merely  for  the  sake  of  having  it.  The  food-getting  re- 
sponses are  thus  one  root  of  what,  as  physical  and  mental  play 
or  constructiveness  and  curiosity,  all  must  recognize  as  main 
origins  of  intellect  and  skill. 

Acquisition  and  Possession. — To  any  not  too  large  object 
which  attracts  attention  and  does  not  possess  repelling  or 
frightening  features  the  original  response  is  approach  or,  if  the 
child  is  within  reaching  distance,  reaching,  touching  and  grasp- 
ing. An  object  having  been  grasped,  its  possession  may  pro- 
voke the  response  of  putting  it  in  the  mouth,  or  of  general 
manipulation,  or  both.  The  sight  of  another  human  being 
going  for  the  object  or  busied  with  it  strengthens  the  ten- 
dencies toward  possession.  To  resistance  the  response  is  pull- 
ing and  twisting  the  object  and  pushing  away  whoever  or 
whatever  is  in  touch  with  it.  Failure  to  get  nearer,  when  one 
has  moved  toward  such  an  object  of  attention,  and  failure  to 
grasp  it  when  one  reaches  for  it,  provoke  annoyance,  more 
vigorous  responses  of  the  same  sort  as  before  and  the  neural 
action  which  produces  an  emotion  which  is  the  primitive  form 
of  desire. 

To  the  situation,  *a  person  or  animal  grabbing  or  making 
off  with  an  object  which  one  holds  or  has  near  him  as  a  result 
of  recent  action  of  the  responses  of  acquisition,*  the  responses 


52  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

are: — the  neural  action  paralleling  the  primitive  emotion  of 
anger,  a  tight  clutch  on  the  object,  and  pushing,  striking  and 
screaming  at  the  intruder. 

Hunting. — It  is  not  hard  to  show  that  man's  original  na- 
ture somehow  leads  to  activities  which  justify  James'  inclusion 
of  a  hunting  instinct.  But  it  is  hard  to  discover  just  what  the 
hunting  instinct  is.  It  is,  for  instance,  doubtful  whether  James 
is  right  in  assuming  the  'hunting'  response  toward  "all  living 
beasts,  great  and  small,"  and  toward  "all  human  beings  in 
whom  we  perceive  a  certain  intent  toward  us,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  human  beings  who  offend  us  peremptorily,  either  by 
their  look,  or  gait,  or  by  some  circumstance  in  their  lives  which 
we  dislike."  Is  there  perhaps,  on  the  contrary,  so  specialized 
a  tendency  as  that  to  rob  birds'  nests,  as  Schneider  maintains? 
Just  what,  in  any  case,  are  the  situations  and  the  responses, 
referred  to  by  the  hunting  instinct  ? 

In  the  writer's  opinion  they  are  as  follows: 

To  *a  small  escaping  object,'  man,  especially  if  hungry, 
responds,  apart  from  training,  by  pursuit,  being  satisfied  when 
he  draws  nearer  to  it.  When  within  pouncing  distance,  he 
pounces  upon  it,  grasping  at  it.  If  it  is  not  seized  he  is  an- 
noyed. If  it  is  seized,  he  examines,  manipulates  and  dismem- 
bers it,  unless  some  contrary  tendency  is  brought  into  action 
by  its  sliminess,  sting  or  the  like.  To  'an  object  of  moderate 
size  and  not  of  offensive  mien  moving  away  from  or  past  him' 
man  originally  responds  much  as  noted  above,  save  that  in 
seizing  the  object  chased,  he  is  likely  to  throw  himself  upon  it, 
bear  it  to  the  ground,  choke  and  maul  it  until  it  is  completely 
subdued,  giving  then  a  cry  of  triumph. 

With  both  small  and  larger  'game,'  there  is,  I  think,  a  ten- 
dency to  bring  the  captured  animal  to  some  familiar  human 
being. 

The  responses  of  cautious  approach,  of  fighting,  of  avoid- 
ance and  of  protective  behavior  may  be  mingled  in  all  sorts  of 
ways  with  the  hunting  responses  in  accordance  with  variations 
in  the  size  of  the  animal,  the  offensiveness  of  its  mien,  and 


FOOD   GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  53 

the  struggle  it  makes  when  seized,  and  in  accordance  with  its 
alternations  from  flight  to  resistance  or  attack. 

The  presence  of  this  tendency  in  man's  nature  under  the 
conditions  of  civilized  life  gets  him  little  food  and  much  trouble. 
There  being  no  wild  animals  to  pursue,  catch  and  torment 
into  submission  or  death,  household  pets,  young  and  timid 
children,  or  even  aunts,  governesses  or  nurse-maids,  if  suffi- 
ciently yielding,  provoke  the  responses  from  the  young.  The 
older  indulge  the  propensity  at  great  cost  of  time  and  money 
in  hunting  beasts,  or  at  still  greater  cost  of  manhood  in  hound- 
ing Quakers,  abolitionists,  Jews,  Chinamen,  scabs,  prophets,  or 
suffragettes  of  the  non-militant  variety.  Teasing,  bullying, 
cruelty,  are  thus  in  part  the  results  of  one  of  nature's  means  of 
providing  self  and  family  with  food:  and  what  grew  up  as  a 
pillar  of  human  self-support  has  become  so  extravagant  a 
luxury  as  to  be  almost  a  vice. 

Possible  Specialised  Tendencies. — It  is  possible  that  ten- 
dencies to  seek  particular  objects  as  food  and  to  capture  them 
by  specialized  sets  of  movements  may  also  be  original  in  man. 
Thus  Schneider  ['82]  thinks  that  bird's  nests  and  eggs  are 
situations  of  particular  potency  to  attract  attention  and  posses- 
sion, and  Acher  ['10]  seems  to  think  that  throwing  stones, 
hitting  with  a  club,  and  cutting  with  pointed  objects  are  re- 
sponses apart  from  learning.  It  has  been  asserted  that  there  is 
a  special  instinct  to  insert  the  fingers  into  crannies  (to  dislodge 
small  animals  hidden  there)  !  There  is  some  evidence  to 
show  that  a  small  object  held  out  or  tossed  to  a  young  human 
is  more  readily  seized  and  tasted  than  one  otherwise  encount- 
ered, and  that  he  will  eat  food  that  he  himself  picks  up  more 
readily  than  the  same  food  when  put  in  his  mouth  by  another. 

Collecting  and  Hoarding* — There  is  originally  a  blind  ten- 
dency to  take  portable  objects   which  attract  attention,   and 

*These  tendencies  are  listed  here  rather  than  in  the  miscellaneous  group 
because  far  back  in  the  animal  series  they  probably  developed  in  connection 
with  the  food-getting  tendencies,  though  in  man  today  and  in  some  other 
animals  the  connection  is  perhaps  entirely  absent. 


54  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

carry  them  to  one's  habitation.  There  is  the  further  response 
of  satisfaction  at  contemplating  and  finge"ing  them  there. 
These  tendencies  commonly  crystallize  into  hc:.Dits  of  collecting 
and  storing  certain  sorts  of  objects  whose  possession  has  addi- 
tional advantages,  and  abort  as  responses  to  other  objects  whose 
possession  brings  secondary  annoyances.  Thus,  money,  mar- 
bles, strings,  shells,  cigar-tags  and  picture-postals  become  fa\'^ 
ored  objects  by  their  power  in  exchange,  convenience  of  car- 
riage, permanent  attractiveness  and  utility  in  play.*  But  clear 
evidences  of  the  original  tendency  may  remain,  as  in  those  who 
feel  a  craving  to  gather  objects  which  they  know  will  be  a 
nuisance  to  them  or  who  cannot  bear  to  diminish  hoards  which 
serve  no  purpose  save  that  of  being  a  hoard.  So  of  the  man 
who  stole  utensils  from  his  own  kitchen  to  increase  his  hoard, 
and  bought  substitutes ! 

^Avoidance  and  Re*pulsion. — ^To  the  situations,  ^bitter  and 
oily  things  in  the  mouth,  slimy,  wriggling  and  creeping  things 
on  one's  flesh,  the  sight  and  smell  of  putrid  flesh,  excrement 
and  entrails,'  there  are  original  tendencies  to  respond  respect- 
ively by  spitting  out  and  retching,  jumping  back  or  shrinking 
or  shuddering,  and  turning  away,  and  in  common  by  the  neural 
action  which  produces  feelings  of  disgust. 

Rivalry  and  Cooperation. — Instinctive  rivalry  and  cooper- 
ation in  food-getting  and  pugnacity  when  dispossessed  will  be 
noted  amongst  the  instincts  of  social  intercourse. 

HABITATION 

James'  description  of  the  original  satisfy Ingness  of  having 
something  fairly  close  over  one's  head  and  behind  one's  back 
when  resting  deserves  quotation  in  full : 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Instinct  to  seek  a  sheltered 
nook,  open  on  only  one  side,  into  which  he  may  retire  and  be 
safe,  is  in  man  quite  as  specific  as  the  instinct  of  birds  to  build 
a  nest.     It  is  not  necessarily  in  the  shape  of  a  shelter  from  wet 

*For  an  instructive  account  of  the  results  of  the  instinct  under  the  con- 
ditions of  modem  life,  see  C  F.  Burk  ['oo],  The  Collecting  Instinct, 
Pedagogical  Seminary,  vol.  7,  pp.  179-207. 


FOOD   GETTING,    PROTECTIVE    RESPONSES,    ANGER  55 

and  cold  that  the  need  comes  before  him,  but  he  feels  less 
exposed  and  more  at  home  when  not  altogether  unenclosed  than 
when  lying  all  abroad.  .  .  .  Habits  of  the  most  complicated 
kind  are  reared  upon  it.  But  even  in  the  midst  of  these  habits 
we  see  the  blind  instinct  cropping  out ;  as,  for  example,  in  the 
fact  that  we  feign  a  shelter  by  backing  up  beds  in  rooms  with 
their  heads  against  the  wall,  and  never  lying  in  them  the  other 
way.  .  .  .  The  first  habitations  were  caves  and  leafy  grot- 
toes, bettered  by  the  hands;  and  we  see  children  today,  when 
playing  in  wild  places,  take  the  greatest  delight  in  discovering 
and  appropriating  such  retreats  and  'playing  house'  there." 
['93,  vol.  2,  pp.  426  flf.] 

It  is  an  instructive  experiment  to  compare  the  behavior  of 
children  to  a  blanket  hung  over  two  chairs,  with  their  behavior 
toward  the  same  chairs  put  on  the  blanket ;  or  to  compare  one's 
own  hesitation  between  the  rational  hygiene  which  keeps  beds 
out  of  alcoves  and  the  instinctive  impulse  to  put  them  just 
there. 

Responses  to  Confinement. — Being  shut  up  completely 
within  a  small  and  especially  a  strange  enclosure,  on  the  other 
hand,  probably  calls  forth  instinctive  discomfort  and  screaming 
in  the  very  young,  and  pulling,  pushing  and  kicking  at  the 
barriers,  in  those  older. 

Migration  and  Domesticity. — Kline  ['98]  believes  in  tHe 
unlearnedness  of  the  migratory  tendency,  but  not  in  its  uni- 
versality. He  quotes,  as  evidence,  many  cases  where  the  sat- 
isfaction of  change  of  surroundings — of  being  in  motion  from 
the  old  to  the  unknown — was  gratified  at  the  sacrifice  of  many 
rationally  more  attractive  goods,*  and  also  cases  of  sheer  blind 

*Says  Flynt :  "I  have  known  men  on  the  road  who  were  tramping 
purely  and  simply  because  they  loved  to  tramp.  They  had  no  appetite  for 
liquor  or  tobacco,  so  far  as  I  could  find,  also  were  quite  out  of  touch  with 
criminals  and  their  habits ;  but  somehow  or  other  they  could  not  conquer 
that  passion  for  roving.  In  a  way  this  type  of  vagabond  is  the  most  pitiful 
that  I  have  ever  known ;  and  yet  is  the  truest  type  of  the  genuine  voluntary 
vagrant.  .  .  .  To  reform  him  it  is  necessary  to  kill  his  personality,  to  take 
away  his  ambition — and  this  is  a  task  almost  superhuman.  Even  when  he 
is  reformed  he  is  a  most  cast  down  person."  [Josiah  Flynt,  '85,  quoted 
by  Kline,  '98.  p.  3] 


56  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

impulsive  running  away  from  the  familiar  surroundings.  On 
the  other  hand,  as  he  admits  and  emphasizes,  homesickness 
or  dissatisfaction  at  change  of  surroundings,  at  the  absence  of 
familiar  objects  or  persons  or  both  seems  equally  unlearned 
and  uncalculating. 

It  is  probable  that  to  the  situation,  'the  long  familiar  physi- 
cal and  social  environment'  there  may  be  in  original  nature 
two  opposite  tendencies,  to  be  content  and  remain  and  to  be 
annoyed  and  depart,  other  conditions  in  the  person  deciding 
which  shall  predominate.  Old  age,  femaleness  and  physical 
weakness,  for  example,  seem  to  favor  the  former  response; 
adolescence,  maleness  and  energy  seem  to  favor  the  latter. 

Both  tendencies  certainly  can  be  shown  by  the  same  indi- 
vidual. The  case  would  thus  be  like,  and  probably  one  mani- 
festation of,  the  instinctive  interest  in  the  objects  associated 
with  one's  life,  one's  house,  possessions,  friends  and  the  like, 
combating  the  equally  instinctive  interest  in  novelty  and  ad- 
venture. In  certain  individuals  one  or  the  other  original  tend- 
ency may  be  specially  strong  so  as  to  counterbalance  the  other 
satisfactions  and  discomforts  of  the  case,  but  for  the  great 
majority  the  attractiveness  of  the  familiar  is  determined  far 
more  by  what  it  has  gone  with  than  by  its  mere  familiarity,  and 
the  call  of  the  unknown  is  chiefly  in  terms,  not  of  its  mere  nov- 
elty, but  of  its  promise  of  other  specific  satisfactions.  It  is 
important  to  note  that  even  Dr.  Kline  finds  that  home  is 
cherished  in  large  measure  because  of  the  kindness  of  parents 
compared  with  strangers,  because  one's  customary  habits  are 
not  interfered  with,  and  because  of  freedom  for  one's  individ- 
uality. Home  is  left  in  large  measure  because  of  injury  (real 
or  fancied)  received  from  parents,  because  of  loneliness,  and 
because  one's  new  desires  are  interfered  with.  That  is,  in 
large  measure  home  is  cherished  or  abandoned  for  just  the 
same  reasons.  The  same  response  occurs  to  the  same  element 
whether  found  in  the  home  or  outside  it. 

Consequently  the  unlearned  tendencies  to  respond  to  mere 
home  and  mere  absence,  even  if  real,  are  of  little  consequence. 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  57 

So  far  as  migration  keeps  other  things  equal  and  affords  more 
new  interesting  experiences,  it  has  the  advantage  of  stronger 
appeal  to  the  love  of  physical  and  mental  activity.  This,  more 
than  a  mere  wanderlust  for  wandering's  own  sake,  is  probably 
the  cause  of  the  widespread  fascination  of  travel. 


FEAR 

Fear  is  an  original  tendency  that  has  been  much  studied* 
and  may  profitably  be  described  here  in  enough  detail  to  serve 
as  a  sample  of  some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  task  of  distin- 
guishing what  is  original  in  human  behavior. 

It  is  customary  for  writers  about  human  nature  to  use  the 
word  fear  as  if  it  meant  a  well-known  fact  about  whose  de- 
scription there  would  be  no  more  disagreement  than  about 
length  or  breadth,  or,  at  least,  than  about  nose-bleed  or  hunger. 
That  this  is  far  from  being  true  is  clear  from  the  answers  from 
persons  of  probably  superior  intelligence  and  knowledge  to 
Stanley  Hall's  set  of  questions  ['97,  p.  148  f.]  about  fear. 
Some  interpret  fear  as  unpleasant  expectation ;  some,  as  dread ; 
some,  as  anxiety;  some,  as  worry;  some,  as  dislike;  some,  as 
avoidance;  some,  as  shock  or  consternation;  some,  as  flight; 
some,  as  paralysis.  The  following  quotations  from  the  an- 
swers illustrate  the  variety  of  inner  affections  and  outer  behavior 
which  the  word  fear  signifies : — 

Unpleasant  expectation  and  dread. 

"She  is  always  fearing  that  meteors  will  drop  on  her." 
Anxiety  and  worry. 

"Has  a  chronic  fear  that  her  father  is  to  die;  although  he 
is  well,  she  fancies  all  the  details,  and  suffers  over  and  over  as 
much  as  if  it  were  real." 

♦Its  bodily  expressions  have  been  described  at  length  by  Darwin  ['72] 
and  others;  Mosso  [English  translation  of  fifth  edition  in  '96]  has  written 
a  book  entitled  Fear,  though  much  of  it  concerns  emotional  expression  in 
general ;  and  Stanley  Hall  ['97]  has  filled  a  hundred  pages  with  descrip- 
tions and  explanations  of  the  commonest  fears  of  childhood. and  adult  life. 


58  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

"Suffers  from  the  constant  fear  of  losing  the  points  of 
the  compass." 
Dislike  and  avoidance. 

"Could  not  bring  herself  to  touch  another's  teeth." 
"A  young  man  could  not  board  in  the  house  with  a  young 
lady  because  she  worked  in  an  undertaker's  factory." 

"Never  can  look  on  the  parts  of  animals  in  the  physiology 
class." 

"Feared  the  bureau  where  an  uncle  kept  his  glass  eye." 
Shock. 

"Starts  at  every  little  thing  twenty  times  a  day ;  her  heart 
leaps  to  her  throat." 
Flight,  paralysis  and  other  forms  of  behavior. 

"The  sight  of  a  mouse  always  gives  her  hysteria." 
"Every  time  the  wind  whistled  or  made  any  kind  of  noise 
would  run  to  his  mother's  lap." 

"Used  to  fall  in  panic  at  shadow." 
"Sweats  and  cannot  move  in  a  thunder-shower." 
"Always  shudders  when  looking  at  clouds." 
"Can  enter  a  dark  place  with  composure,  but  the  moment 
she  turns  her  back  to  come  out  she  has  the  horrors,  must  gen- 
erally run,  and  sometimes  scream." 

"Is  dizzy,  cramped  and  nauseated  at  green  worms." 
"Shows  his  horror  of  touching  fur  by  putting  both  hands 
behind  him  and  spitting  vigorously." 

From  such  facts  it  appears  that,  while  each  writer  may 
know  definitely  what  he  means  by  fear  (though  I  think  not), 
it  is  almost  certain  that  not  all  writers  will  mean  the  same 
thing,  and  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  not  all  their  readers  will. 
Description,  explanation  and  practical  precepts  for  the  control 
of  fear  should,  so  far  as  may  be,  replace  the  vague  single  word 
by  an  objective  account  of  actual  responses.  This  I  shall  try 
to  do. 

The  more  easily  observable  responses  are : — 
Withdrawal  of  attention  from  everything  save  the  excit- 
ing situation 


FOOD   GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,    ANGER  59 

Running  from  the  exciting  object 

Running  to  cover 

Running  to  a  familiar  human  animal 

Crouching  under  something 

Crouching  behind  something 

Clutching 

Clinging 

Nestling 

Starting — i.  e.,  a  sudden  tension  of  the  muscles  in  general 

Remaining  stock-still,  semi-paralyzed 

Falling  down 

A  screaming  cry 

Turning  the  head 

Covering  the  head 

Covering  the  eyes 

Shuddering 

Shivering 

Trembling 

Opening  the  mouth  wide 

Opening  the  eyes  wide 

Raising  the  eyebrows 

Temporary  cessation  of  breathing 

Temporary  cessation  of  heart-beat 

Acceleration  of  breathing 

Acceleration  of  heart-beat 

Increased  intensity  of  heart-beat 

Difficulty  in  breathing  and  paleness,  due  to  the  contraction 
of  the  smooth  muscles  of  the  lungs  and  of  the  small  arteries  in 
the  skin 

Sweating 

Diminished  action  of  the  salivary  glands 

Erection  of  the  hair 

Less  easily  observable,  and  as  yet  undefined,  responses  are 
the  changes  within  the  nervous  system  that  produce  the  sub- 
jective features*  whereby  a  man  could  report  that  he  had) 

♦Some  of  the  experts  in  telling  wliat   a  man's  conscious  states   are 


60  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

felt  fear,  though  he  had  no  knowledge  that  he  had  responded 
in  any  of  the  ways  hitherto  listed. 

The  antagonistic  or  exclusive  responses  in  the  above  list 
may  occur  in  response  to  the  same  situation,  but  in  sequence. 
Thus  one  may  remain  stock-still  for  a  moment,  then  run  and 
then  crouch  behind  something;  or  may  have  the  heart  stop  and 
then  beat  faster  and  harder. 

The  clutching,  clinging  and  nestling  are,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, specially  prominent  in  early  infancy,  but  persist  to 
some  degree  throughout  life.  Running  to  a  familiar  human 
animal  and  a  screaming  cry  are  also  relatively  more  prominent 
in  infancy  and  early  childhood,  but  also  persist. 

It  is  obvious  that  not  all  of  these  responses  will  be  made 
to  any  one  situation  on  any  one  occasion,  though  a  sufficiently 
exciting  stimulus  will  bring  forth  a  majority  of  them.  If 
Aeneas  "stood  stock-still,  his  hair  bristled,  his  voice  stuck  in 
his  throat,"  he  doubtless  also  shuddered,  grew  pale,  opened 
wide  his  eyes  and  mouth,  raised  his  eyebrows.  He  may  have 
displayed  many  more  of  these  responses. 

What  now  are  the  situations  which  originally  provoke 
these  responses  severally  or  certain  common  combinations  of 
them?  It  must  be  at  once  confessed  that  we  do  not  know, 
for  if  we  did  we  should  not  find  three  competent  students  of 
human  nature  reporting, — one  that  "fears  of  thunder  .  .  . 
reptiles  and  insects  are  probably  merely  transmitted  from  one 
generation  to  another  by  social  heredity"  (by  which  is  meant 
not  heredity  at  all,  but  its  opposite — education)  and  that 
("probably  the  only  specialized  fear  that  is  instinctive  is  that 
excited  by  the  danger-call  of  parents"^  [Kirkpatrick,  '03,  pp. 
,103  and  loi]  ;  another  that  by  our  original  organization, 
'^Strange  men,  and  strange  animals,  either  large  or  small,  ex- 
made  of  would  compound  the  subjective  features  of  fear  out  of  the  sights, 
sounds,  etc.,  from  the  situation,  plus  unpleasantness;  others  would  add  to 
the  sensations  and  unpleasantness,  a  feeling  of  tension;  others  would  add 
further  a  feeling  of  depression  (or  possibly  of  excitement).  It  is  not 
necessary  to  our  purpose  to  decide  between  the  rival  theories  of  the  inner 
aspect  of  fear. 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  6l 

cite  fear,  but  especially  men  or  animals  advancing  toward  us  in 
a  threatening  way.  .  .  .  The  great  source  of  terror  to  in- 
fancy is  solitude.  .  .  .  Black  things,  and  especially  dark 
places,  holes,  caverns,  etc.,  arouse  a  peculiarly  gruesome  fear. 
...  A  human  corpse  seems  normally  to  produce  an  in- 
stinctive dread''  [James,  '93,  vol.  2,  pp.  417-420,  passim] ; 
and  another  [McDougall,  '08,  p.  49]  that  what  we  respond 
to  by  flight  is  "danger !" 

Thunder  and  lightning,  reptiles,  wild  and  domestic  ani- 
mals,* darkness,  and  strange  persons  were  most  frequently 
reported  as  the  objects  of  fear  in  response  to  Stanley  Hall's 
questions  ['97].  These  five  covered  over  a  third  of  all  the 
reports,  numbering  603,  483,  474,  432  and  436  out  of  the 
total  of  6456.  Fire,  death,  disease  and  robbers,  which,  on 
grounds  of  learning  alone,  should  probably  be  more  feared  than 
the  five  mentioned,  were  reported  only  365,  299,  241  and  153 
times.  Moreover  the  fear  in  the  latter  case  is  far  more  often 
the  response  of  dread  or  anxiety  or  mere  precaution  lest  the 
house  catch  fire,  lest  one  die  or  become  ill,  lest  thieves  break 
in  and  steal,  the  situations  being  other  than  fire,  death,  disease 
or  robbery  themselves.  In  the  former  case,  the  fear  reported 
is  the  thoroughgoing  agitation  when  in  presence  of  the  object 
itself.  Miss  Miles  ['95]  asked  a  hundred  students  and  teach- 
ers at  Wellesley  College,  "What  things  were  you  afraid  of  as  a 
child?"  getting  replies  as  follows: — "31  feared  darkness;  31 
feared  animals.  Dogs  and  cows  were  mentioned  most  often 
.  .  .  ;  24  feared  (or  felt  repulsion  toward)  snakes,  spiders, 
worms,  mice,  cats,  etc.;  18  feared  human  beings — drunken, 
dead,  insane,  strange,  tramps  and  nide  boys;  9  feared  imag- 
inary evils."  Robinson,  who  reports  actual  experiments,  is  con- 
vinced of  the  originality  of  fear  at  the  approach  of  a  large, 
noisy,  shaggy  object.     He  writes : — 

"In  connection  with  this  subject  we  may  consider  the  re- 
markable terror  which  is  exhibited  by  most  children  of  under 
two  years  old  on   seeing  anything  which   resembles   a   wild 

♦Not  including,  apparently,  insects  or  rats  and  mice,  which  were  re- 
ported 203  and  196  times. 


62  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

beast.  This  is  quite  independent  of  the  most  elementary 
knowledge  of  natural  history,  and  still  more  so  of  any  acquired 
information  as  to  possible  danger  from  such  a  source.  I  have 
experimented  on  my  own  little  ones,  and  on  others,  in  order 
to  find  out  what  crawling  shape  they  deemed  most  frightful. 
This,  I  thought,  might  give  one  a  hint  of  the  most  prevalent 
source  of  danger  to  children  in  that  prehistoric  epoch  during 
which  human  nature  was  being  slowly  shaped  and  moulded  out 
of  the  beast-nature  of  The  Thing  of  the  Tree.  My  modus 
operandi  consisted  of  covering  myself  (always  in  full  sight 
of  the  child)  with  a  shaggy  skin,  and  then  imitating  the  actions 
and  voices  of  various  dangerous  creatures  such  as  the  wolf, 
lion,  bear,  or  dog.  These  experiments  were  followed  up  by 
showing  the  children  the  stuffed  specimens  of  such  beasts 
in  the  Kensington  Natural  History  Museum.  Although  they 
had  no  knowledge,  either  practical  or  otherwise,  of  the  formid- 
able character  of  animals  of  such  a  kind  (and  also  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  fraud  was  a  patent  one),  the  children  all 
exhibited  great  agitation  and  distress  whenever  the  pseudo 
bear  or  wolf  drew  near;  so  much  so,  in  fact,  that  the  'new 
game'  had  to  be  speedily  relinquished  in  most  instances." 
['94,  p.  476  f.] 

Sully  ['96]  thinks  that  the  "facts  are  strongly  opposed  to 
the  theory  of  an  inherited  fear  of  animals"  [p.  209]  and 
that  "it  is  by  no  means  certain  that"  the  fear  of  being  alone 
in  the  dark  is  instinctive,  [p.  212]  But  the  evidence  which 
he  summons  hardly  justifies  the  first  of  these  statements  and 
leaves  the  main  arguments  in  favor  of  an  instinctive  response 
to  loneliness  and  the  dark  undisturbed. 

On  the  whole,  it  seems  likely  that  an  unlearned  tendency 
exists  to  respond  by  the  physical  and  mental  condition  known 
as  fear  to  the  situations,  'thunder-storm,'*  'reptiles,'  'large  ani- 
mals approaching  one,'  'certain  vermin,'  'darkness'  and  'strange 
persons  of  unfriendly  mien.' 

It  is  highly  probable  also  that  some  noises,  other  than 
thunder,  excite  some  of  the  responses  on  our  list.     McDougall, 

*Mr.  H.  M.  Stanley  ['98]  has  suggested  that  the  essential  feature  of 
the  situation  is  not  the  flash  or  noise,  but  the  electro-magnetic  disturbance 
itself. 


FOOD   GETTING^    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES^    ANGER  63 

who  is  in  general  very  timid  about  stating  any  concrete  par- 
ticulars that  originally  excite  fear,  admits  that  "in  most  young 
children  unmistakable  fear  is  provoked  by  any  sudden  loud  noise 
.  .  .  and  all  through  life  such  noise  remains  for  many  of  us 
the  surest  and  most  frequent  excitant"  (of  fear).  ['08,  p.  51.] 
It  is  indeed  the  case  that,  in  the  biographies  of  infants,  noises 
and  strange  persons  are  more  frequently  mentioned  as  the  situa- 
tions causing  fear  than  are  all  other  objects  together.*  This 
extreme  emphasis  is,  however,  in  large  measure  due  to  the 
fact  that  modern  civiHzed  life  produces  many  harsh,  piercing 
and  sudden  noises,  and  eliminates  wild  animals. 

We  may  ask  further  whether  certain  particular  qualities  of 
noise  do  not  have  a  fear-exciting  effect  beyond  that  of  their 
suddenness  and  intensity.  Does,  for  instance,  an  equally  loud 
and  sudden  merry  'Hello'  excite  the  same  response  as  a  dog's 
growl  or  the  wind's  howl  ?  I  think  not,  but  am  unable  to  give 
important  evidence  of  the  specialized  effects  of  equally  sudden 
and  loud  noises. 

*The  great  source  of  terror  to  infancy  is  solitude,'  says 
James,  and  many  of  us  can  testify  to  the  existence  of,  at  least, 
a  greater  readiness  to  be  frightened  by  other  features  of  a  sit- 
uation when  solitude  is  one  feature,  and  to  the  apparent  un- 
learnedness  of  this  tendency.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  be 
argued  that  experience  is  adequate,  since  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  sufferings  of  life  come  upon  a  child  when  he  is  alone. 
It  is  then  that  he  falls  out  of  his  crib,  is  attacked  by  dogs  or 
other  children,  and  the  like ;  and,  when  we  are  older,  it  is  then 
that  fancy  conjures  up  possible  dangers  and  miseries. 

These  contra-arguments  are  weaker  than  they  seem.  In- 
fants who  are  fed  with  absolute  regularity,  and  who  are  never 
left  alone  in  circumstances  which  permit  injury  from  loneli- 
ness, nevertheless  will,  when  they  are  alone,  start  and  scream 
at  objects  and  events  that  would  cause  no  such  response  in 
the  mother's  presence.     Many  observers  who  deny  that  soli- 

*Sce  Preyer  ['821 .  Perez  [•881.  Moore  ['96I,  Shinn  Vgo],  Hall  ['96,  '97! • 
See  also  Gard  ['08]  on  strange  sounds  as  a  cause  of  shock. 


64  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

tude  provokes  fear  would  agree  that  the  mother's  presence 
lessens  it.  But  that  is  really  to  assert  the  same  thing.  The 
sensitiveness  of  imagination  to  frightening  ideas  in  solitude  is  a 
result  rather  than  a  cause  of  fear.  Being  alone,  we  grow  fear- 
some; growing  fearsome,  we  think  of  events  in  harmony  with 
our  fearsomeness. 

What  Kirkpatrick,  who  denies  specialized  instinctive  fears, 
says  of  darkness  may  be  said  of  solitude  also — ^that  it  "is  a 
condition  in  which  fear  may  readily  be  excited."  ['03,  p.  loi.] 
But  this  is  to  admit  that  solitude  does  have  a  tendency  to  pro- 
duce the  fear  responses.  What  causes  any  response  to  a  total 
situation,  is  that  much  of  the  situation,  which,  if  altered,  alters 
the  response.  If  a  man  has  a  stronger  original  tendency  to 
tremble,  and  the  like,  when  the  wind  howls  around  him  in  his 
loneliness  than  when  he  hears  the  same  howling  in  company, 
then  the  loneliness  as  well  as  the  howling  is  fear-producing. 

In  all  such  cases — of  fear  or  of  any  other  responses — it  is 
unscientific  to  draw  a  sharp  line  between  the  major,  or  more 
essential,  and  the  minor,  or  less  essential,  features  of  a  situa- 
tion. Darkness,  solitude  and  suddenness  should  be  thought  of 
ultimately  just  as  thunder  or  reptiles.  To  state  that  we  respond 
by  X  to  thunder,  responding  more  vigorously  or  surely  when 
alone,  is  to  state  absolutely  the  same  fact  as  that  we  respond  by 
X  to  loneliness,  responding  to  it  more  vigorously  or  surely 
when  there  is  thunder.  Absolutely  the  same  fact  may  be  de- 
scribed truthfully  by  saying  that  we  fear  X,  fearing  it  more 
when  Y  also  occurs;  or  that  we  fear  Y,  fearing  it  more  when 
X  also  occurs. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  situation  of  being  on  a  high  place, 
as  a  bridge,  tree-top  or  precipice  edge,  provokes  by  original 
nature  any  characteristic  complex  of  the  responses  of  our  list. 
In  Stanley  Hall's  replies,  the  disagreeableness  of  the  situation 
seems  to  be  due  oftenest  to  intellectual  apprehensions — first, 
that  one  may  give  way  to  the  'impulse  to  jump  off,'  and  second 
that  something  may  give  way.  The  'impulse  to  jump  off*  is 
utterly  unlike  *fear  at  being  there,'  and  the  idea  that  something 


FOOD   GETTING     PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  65 

may  give  way  is  a  product  of  training.  Children  have  to  be 
vigorously  cautioned  against  climbing  trees,  going  too  near 
edges  and  the  like;  the  passion  for  being  up  in  the  air  as  in 
swings,  on  hilltops  and  the  like,  is  very  strong;  the  modem 
building-trades  seem  free  from  any  considerable  handicap,  in 
spite  of  the  dizzy  perching  which  they  involve;  finally,  the 
actual  sensations  of  those  who  go  up  in  the  air  in  ships 
seem  charming  rather  than  frightful. 

What  James  calls  'fear  of  the  supernatural'  ['93,  p.  419] 
and  what  McDougall  refers  to  in  saying  that  "in  some  of  the 
more  timid  creatures  it  would  seem  that  every  unfamiliar  sound 
or  sight  is  capable  of  exciting  fear"  ['08,  p.  51],  offer  interest- 
ing problems  for  analysis.  Strangeness  of  certain  sorts,  for  ex- 
ample, the  'vertiginous  baffling  of  the  expectation,'  certainly 
provokes  the  fear  responses.  Strangeness  of  other  sorts  or  in 
other  contexts  provokes  a  mere  caution ;  of  other  sorts,  curious 
examination ;  of  otl^er  sorts,  delighted  contemplation ;  of  other 
sorts,  indifference.  ;  Which  sorts  in  which  circumstances  pro- 
duce which  responses — nobody  has  dared  to  state.  Daily  life 
offers  amusing  proofs  of  our  ignorance.  The  parent  buys  a 
toy,  prophesying  that  its  novelty  will  lead  to  delighted  con- 
templation, but  finds  that  it  produces  'turning  the  head  away, 
clinging,  trembling  and  screaming.'  The  teacher  shows  a  rare 
specimen  to  secure  curious  examination,  but  gets  only  indif- 
ference. The  practical  joker  with  elaborate  care  arranges  an 
exhibit  to  excite  paralysis  and  flight,  but  his  young  brother 
only  cautiously  approaches  and  demolishes  it. 

I  may  venture  a  few  suggestions  to  aid  in  solving  this 
question,  though  we  must  in  the  end  rely  upon  special  observer 
tions  and  experiments.  First,  strangeness  per  se  causes  shock. 
The  amount  of  shock  will  depend  in  part  on  the  amount  of 
strangeness,  and  in  part  on  the  condition  of  the  person.  What 
gives  the  mild  shock  of  surprise  in  health  may  give  the  grave 
shock  of  fear  in  illness.  The  amount  of  shock  will  also  de- 
pend in  part  on  the  kind  of  strangeness.  Strange  men  and 
animals  (and  moving  objects,  it  may  be  added)  more  often 
5 


66  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

provoke  fear,  strange  tastes  and  smells  more  often  provoke 
mere  discomfort,  strange  motionless  objects,  such  as  toys,  flow- 
ers or  furniture,  more  often  curiosity. 

It  is  strange  that  there  should  be  in  the  literature  on  fear 
no  emphatic  mention  of  the  power  of  'being  suddenly  brushed 
or  clutched'  to  arouse  the  fear  responses,  especially  in  women 
and  children.  I  venture  to  assert  that  nine-tenths  of  females 
(and  of  males  under  15)  when  they  were  alone  in  the  dark 
would,  if  something  brushed  by  them  or  gripped  throat,  arm 
or  leg,  show  pronounced  responses,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no 
harm  had  ever  been  done  them  as  the  result  of  similar  sensa- 
tions. In  older  males  the  fear  responses  might  persist,  or  be 
mixed  with,  or  give  way  to,  those  of  fighting. 

Since  the  responses  and  the  situations  provoking  them 
which  are  involved  in  what  men  call  instinctive  fear  are  both 
so  numerous,  there  should  be,  in  an  account  of  original  nature, 
a  section  telling  just  which  of  the  responses  are  bound  to  each 
of  the  situations,  and  how  firmly.  As  yet  this  has  not  been 
done,  or  even  attempted. 

Surely,  however,  the  sciences  of  human  nature  cannot  rest 
content  with  the  fact  that  by  original  nature  strange  men 
and  animals  advancing  toward  us  with  threatening  mien, 
thunder  and  lightning,  reptiles,  darkness,  solitude,  dark  holes 
and  corners,  rats,  spiders  and  other  creeping  things,  sudden 
noises,  contacts  and  clutches  unprepared  for  tend  to  produce 
more  or  less  an  indeterminate  assortment  of  discomfort,  run- 
ning, crouching,  screaming,  clinging,  trembling,  and  so  on. 
They  need  to  know  just  what  the  effect  of  each  of  these  situal- 
tion-elements  is.  Practically,  it  makes  a  great  difference 
whether  a  man  responds  only  with  discomfort,  palpitations  and 
the  inner  subjective  fear,  still  shooting  at  the  enemy,  or  also 
runs  and  hides.  Theoretically,  it  makes  a  great  difference 
whether  the  situations  involved  are  regarded  as  producing  in- 
discriminately a  vague  X,  fear,  which  then  may  at  random 
produce  any  assortment  of  its  various  'expressions,'  or  are 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  67 

regarded  as  each  producing,  under  the  same  conditions,  an 
effect  proper  to  it  and  to  nothing  but  it.  In  the  latter  case  we 
are  encouraged  to  study  the  exact  details  of  human  behavior 
in  fear,  tho  we  may  never  know  them,  while  in  the  former 
case  we  are  told  beforehand  that  they  are  unknowable. 

As  a  sample  of  such  inquiries,  let  us  ask  whether  each  of  the 
situations  tends  equally  to  provoke  each  of  the  responses  and 
in  the  same  degree,  so  that  one  or  another,  or  one  after  another, 
and  more  or  less  of  it,  will  come  according  to  accidental  physio- 
logical conditions  in  the  animal.  Surely  not.  The  'fear'  due 
to  a  large  animal  coming  toward  one  rapidly  is  not  the 
same  as  the  'fear'  due  to  thunder  and  lightning.  The  large 
animal  is  much  more  likely  to  be  responded  to  by  running  than 
by  hiding.  With  thunder  and  lightning  the  reverse  is  true. 
Still  surer  is  the  specialization  of  the  intensity  of  the  response. 
One  can  vary  the  amount  of  a  child's  'starting'  from  a  con- 
traction hardly  perceptible  up  to  one  approaching  a  convulsion, 
by  varying  the  stimulus.  Can  anyone  doubt  that  each  degree 
of  loneliness  or  suddenness  has  a  determinate  effect? 

Consider  the  specialized  effects  of  solitude,  of  sounds  com- 
pared with  sights,  and  of  seeing  a  large  animal  approaching 
one  rapidly  com{)ared  with  grasping  a  cold  clammy  reptile. 
In  my  opinion  at  least,  the  clutching,  clinging  and  nestling  re- 
sponses are  relatively  rare  in  solitude,  tho  occasionally  a 
human  being,  so  frightened,  will  clutch  at  trees  or  even  at 
nothing.  Fearful  sounds  rarely  provoke  turning  the  head 
away  and  covering  the  eyes,  but  fearful  sights  often  do.  A 
large  animal  approaching  one  rapidly  and  distant,  say,  forty 
feet,  is  often  responded  to  by  turning  and  running,  but  very 
rarely  by  jumping  backwards.  The  reverse  is  true  of  the 
response  to  the  same  animal  met  suddenly  at  a  distance  of  three 
feet,  or  to  a  clutch  (from  in  front)  in  the  dark. 

It  is  probable  further  that  an  impartial  survey  of  human 
behavior,  unprejudiced  by  the  superstition  that  a  magic  state 
of  consciousness,  'fear,'  is  aroused  by  'danger,'  and  then  creates 
flight  and  other  symptoms  of  itself,  would  show  that  pursuit 


68  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

and  capture  may  produce  distinctive  responses  whether  or  no 
the  peculiar  inner  trepidation  which  introspection  knows  is 
present.  A  large  object  coming  rapidly  toward  one  seems  often 
to  provoke  instinctive  turning,  fleeing,  seeking  cover  (and  the 
human  horde,  if  that  is  present)  without  necessarily  doing 
more.  Being  pounced  on  or  grasped  by  a  large  object  seems 
often  to  be  responded  to  by  instinctive  dodging,  writhing  and 
pulling,  without  anything  that  deserves  the  name  of  the  inner 
emotion  of  fear. 

FIGHTING 

Fighting  and  anger  might  be  listed  under  the  original 
tendencies  of  social  intercourse,  since  the  situations  concerned 
are  so  often  produced  by  other  human  beings.  They  might  go 
under  tendencies  of  gross  bodily  manipulation.  They  might 
go  along  with  the  peculiarly  'expressive'  tendencies.  They 
might,  even  more  scientifically,  be  separated  into  different 
behavior-series  and  reported  under  several  of  our  headings.  I 
list  them  together  and  here  simply  as  a  matter  of  convenience 
to  the  student. 

Pugnacity  and  anger  are  usually  coupled  together  (for 
example,  by  James  ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  409  f.]  and  by  McDougall 
['08,  p.  59  f.] )  a^s  the  external  and  internal  aspects  of  the  same 
response.  But  the  facts  of  original  nature  are  hardly  so  simple. 
Pugnacious  behavior  or  fighting  and  angry  behavior  are  both 
complexes,  which  need  to  be  analyzed  and  which  are  by  no 
means  proved  to  be  inseparable  in  man's  original  equipment. 
There  seem,  indeed,  to  be  at  least  six  separable  sets  of  connec- 
tions in  the  so-called  'fighting  instinct.'*     These  are : — 

(i)  To  the  situation,  'being  interfered  with  in  any  bodily 
movements  which  the  individual  is  impelled  by  its  own  con- 
stitution to  make,  the  interference  consisting  in  holding  the 
individual/  the  little  child  makes  instinctively  responses  of 
stiffening,  writhing  and  throwing  back  the  head  and  shoulders. 

♦There  is  a  still  different  set  or  sets  for  the  tendencies  most  usefully 
called  instinctive  anger. 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  69 

These  are  supplemented  or  replaced  by  kicking,  pushing,  slap- 
ping, scratching  and  biting  in  the  older.  This  tendency,  if  it 
exists,  may  be  called  the  instinct  of  escape  from  restraint. 

(2)  To  a  similar  situation,  with  the  difference  that  the 
interference  is  by  getting  in  the  way  or  shoving,  the  responses 
are: — dodging  around,  pushing  with  hands  or  body,  hitting, 
pulling  and  (though,  I  think,  much  less  often)  slapping,  kick- 
ing and  biting.  This  may  be  called  the  instinct  of  overcoming 
a  moving  obstacle. 

Parents  who  are  scientific  observers  will  admit  the  existence 
and  unlearnedness  of  these  two  tendencies,  and,  I  think,  will  by 
close  observation  find  that  they  are  fairly  distingpaishable  one 
from  the  other,  and  both  from  the  forms  of  anger  and  fighting 
whose  description  follows.  The  angry  behavior  in  these  two 
cases  usually  ceases  when  the  confinement  or  obstruction  ceases, 
and  rarely  leads  to  more  violent  behavior  thereafter,  whereas 
in  some  other  cases  it  is  maintained  and  may  arouse  the  hunting 
instinct,  teasing,  bullying  and  cruelty  after  its  own  immediate 
end  has  been  attained. 

(3)  To  the  situation  'being  seized,  slapped,  chased  or  bitten 
(by  any  object),  the  escape-movements  having  been  ineffective 
or  inhibited  for  any  reason,'  the  fighting  movements  or  the 
paralysis  of  terror  may  be  the  response.  When  the  former 
occurs,  the  total  complex  may  be  called  the  instinct  of  counter- 
attack. 

To  the  particular  situations  that  arise  when  attack  provokes 
counter-attack,  there  are,  I  believe,  particular  responses.  If 
A  clings  to  B,  trying  to  throw  him  down  or  bite  him,  B  will, 
by  original  nature,  more  often  try  to  push  A  away  or  throw  him 
down  than  to  hit  or  bite  him.  If  A  rushes  at  B,  slapping, 
scratching  and  kicking,  B  will,  by  original  nature,  more  often 
hit  and  kick  at  A  than  try  to  push  him  away  or  throw  him 
down.  I  believe  that  there  is  a  basis  in  original  nature  for  the 
distinction  in  sf)ort  between  the  fight  with  fists,  which  I  judge 
to  be  a  refinement  (inappropriate  as  the  word  may  seem)  of 


yO  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

the  *slap-scratch-poke'  fighting",  and  the  wrestling  match,  which 
I  judge  to  be  a  refinement  of  the  'push-pull-throw  down-jump 
upon'  fighting.  When  A  and  B  are  both  down,  the  response 
is  an  effort  to  get  on  top.  When  A  is  beaten,  it  is  originally- 
satisfying  to  B  to  sit  on  him  (or  it),  to  stand  exulting  beside 
him  (or  it),  and  to  remain  unsatisfied  (if  A  is  a  human  being) 
until  A  has  given  signs  of  general  submissiveness.  Many  other 
specialized  original  tendencies,  such  as  to  remove  things  from 
different  parts  of  the  body  in  different  ways,  and  to  duck  the 
head  and  lift  up  the  arm,  bent  at  the  elbow,  in  response  to  the 
situation,  'an  object  coming  toward  the  head  rapidly,'  appear 
in  the  course  of  a  fight. 

(4)  To  the  situation  'sudden  pain'  the  response  is  attack 
upon  any  moving  object  near  at  hand.  This  may  be  called 
the  instinct  of  irrational  response  to  pain.  This  fact,  common 
in  everyone's  experience,  may  of  course  be  interpreted  as  an 
acquired  habit  of  response  by  analogy,  but  it  seems  to  the  writer 
that  it  is  a  true  and  beautiful  case  of  nature's  very  vague, 
imperfect  adaptations,  which  only  on  the  whole  and  in  a  state 
of  nature  are  useful.  When  a  loving  child  with  indigestion 
beats  its  mother  who  is  trying  to  rock  it  to  sleep  (though  it 
would  protest  still  more  if  not  rocked),  or  when  a  benevolent 
master  punches  the  servant  who  is  lifting  his  gouty  foot,  the 
contrary  habits  seem  too  strong  to  be  overcome  by  the  force  of 
mere  analogy  with  an  acquired  habit  of  hitting  in  response  to 
the  pain  of  conflict.  Indeed  the  existence  of  the  latter  habit  is 
in  such  cases  only  a  matter  of  speculation. 

(5)  To  the  situation,  'an  animal  of  the  same  species  toward 
whom  one  has  not  taken  the  attitude  of  submission  and  who 
does  not  take  it  toward  him'  the  human  male  responds  by 
threatening  movements,  shoving  the  person  away,  and,  if  these 
fail  to  produce  the  attitude  of  submission,  by  either  submission 
or  further  attack.  The  encounter  is  closed  by  the  submission 
of  either  party,  which  may  take  place  at  any  point.  This 
tendency  may  be  called  the  instinct  of  combat  in  rivalry. 

Dr.  Ordahl  ['08]  has  given  some  interesting  evidence  of 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES^    ANGER  7I 

the  prevalence  of  this  tendency  in  mammals  in  general.  The 
following  episode  from  Tom  Sawyer  may  serve  to  clothe  my 
abstract  formulation  in  flesh  and  blood: — 

"Neither  boy  spoke.  If  one  moved,  the  other  moved — 
but  only  sidewise,  in  a  circle ;  they  kept  face  to  face  and  eye  to 
eye  all  the  time.     Finally  Tom  said : 

"I  can  lick  you !" 

"I'd  like  to  see  you  try  it." 

"Well,  I  can  do  it." 

"No,  you  can't  either." 

"Yes  I  can." 

"No  you  can't." 

"I  can." 

"You  can't." 

"Can!" 

"Can't!" 

An  uncomfortable  pause.     Then  Tom  said : 

"What's  your  name?" 

"  'Tisn't  any  business  of  yours,  maybe." 

"Well,  I  'low  I'll  make  it  my  business." 

"Well,  why  don't  you?" 

"If  you  say  much,  I  will." 

"Much — much — much.     There  now." 

"Oh,  you  think  you're  mighty  smart,  don't  you?  I  could 
lick  you  with  one  hand  tied  behind  me,  if  I  wanted  to." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  do  it?     You  say  you  can  do  it." 

"Well,  I  will,  if  you  fool  with  me." 

"Oh  yes, — I've  seen  whole  families  in  the  same  fix." 

"Smarty!  You  think  you're  some,  now,  don't  you?  Oh, 
what  a  hat !" 

"You  can  lump  that  hat  if  you  don't  like  it.  I  dare  you 
to  knock  it  off — and  anybody  that'll  take  a  dare  will  suck  eggs." 

"You're  a  liar!" 

"You're  another." 

"You're  a  fighting  liar  and  dasn't  take  it  up." 

"Aw— take  a  walk !" 

"Say — if  you  give  me  much  more  of  your  sass  I'll  take  and 
bounce  a  rock  off'n  your  head." 

"Oh,  of  course  you  will." 

"Well,  I  will." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  do  it  then  ?     What  do  you  keep  say- 


72  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

ing  you  will  for?  Why  don't  you  do  it?  It's  because  you're 
afraid." 

"I  ain't  afraid." 

"You  are." 

"I  ain't." 

"You  are." 

Another  pause,  and  more  eyeing  and  sidling  around  each 
other.     Presently  they  were  shoulder  to  shoulder. 

Tom  said : 

"Get  away  from  here !" 

"Go  away  yourself !" 

"I  won't." 

"I  won't  either." 

So  they  stood,  each  with  a  foot  placed  at  an  angle  as  a  brace, 
and  both  shoving  with  might  and  main,  and  glowering  at  each 
other  with  hate.  But  neither  could  get  an  advantage.  After 
struggling  till  both  were  hot  and  flushed,  each  relaxed  his 
strain  with  watchful  caution,  and  Tom  said : 

"You're  a  coward  and  a  pup.  I'll  tell  my  big  brother  on 
you,  and  he  can  thrash  you  with  his  little  finger,  and  I'll  make 
him  do  it,  too." 

"What  do  I  care  for  your  big  brother  ?  I've  got  a  brother 
that's  bigger  than  he  is — ^and  what's  more,  he  can  throw  him 
over  that  fence,  too."     (Both  brothers  were  imaginary.) 

"That's  a  lie." 

"Your  saying  so  don't  make  it  so." 

Tom  drew  a  line  in  the  dust  with  his  big  toe,  and  said : 

"I  dare  you  to  step  over  that,  and  I'll  lick  you  till  you  can't 
stand  up.     Anybody  that'll  take  a  dare  will  steal  sheep." 

The  new  boy  stepped  over  promptly,  and  said : 

"Now  you  said  you'd  do  it,  now  let's  see  you  do  it." 

"Don't  you  crowd  me  now ;  you  better  look  out." 

"Well,  you  said  you'd  do  it — why  don't  you  do  it?" 

"By  jingo!  for  two  cents  I  will  do  it." 

The  new  boy  took  two  broad  coppers  out  of  his  pocket  and 
held  them  out  with  derision.  Tom  struck  them  to  the  ground. 
In  an  instant  both  boys  were  rolling  and  tumbling  in  the  dirt, 
gripped  together  like  cats ;  and  for  the  space  of  a  minute  they 
tugged  and  tore  at  each  other's  hair  and  clothes,  punched  and 
scratched  each  other's  noses,  and  covered  themselves  with  dust 
and  glory.     Presently  the  confusion  took  form  and  through 


FOOD  GETTING,   PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,   ANGER  73 

the  fog  of  battle  Tom  appeared,  seated  astride  the  new  boy, 
and  pounding  him  with  his  fists. 

"Holler 'nuffr  said  he. 

The  boy  only  struggled  to  free  himself.  He  was  crying, 
— mainly  from  rage. 

"Holler  'nuff !" — ^and  the  pounding  went  on. 

At  last  the  stranger  got  out  a  smothered  "  'nuff !"  and  Tom 
let  him  up  and  said : 

"Now  that'll  learn  you.  Better  look  out  who  you're  fool- 
ing with  next  time." 

(6)  To  the  situation,  *the  mere  presence  of  a  male  of  the 
same  species  during  acts  of  courtship,'  the  human  male  tends  to 
respond  by  threatening  or  attacking  movements  until  the  in- 
truder is  driven  away  or  the  disturbed  one  himself  flees. 

I  am  less  confident  of  the  existence  of  this  than  of  any  of 
the  other  specializations  of  the  fighting  tendency,  but  on  the 
whole  cannot  conquer  the  suspicion  that  mere  presence  without 
other  provocation  does  arouse  resentment  in  other  males  en- 
gaged in  courtship  as  it  would  not  otherwise,  and  that  the 
disappearance  of  the  intruder  rather  than  his  submission  is  the 
satisfying  condition  in  this  case  much  more  than  in  others. 

(7)  Either  as  habits  of  analogy  developing  from  these 
specialized  tendencies,  or  as  an  equally  original  but  vaguer 
tendency  in  addition  to  them,  the  following  behavior  occurs : — 

To  the  situation — being  for  some  length  of  time  thwarted 
in  any  instinctive  response  by  any  thing,  especially  if  the  thwart- 
ing continues  after  one  has  done  various  things  to  evade  it,  the 
response-group  of  pushing,  kicking,  hitting,  etc.,  is  made,  the 
attack  continuing  until  the  situation  is  so  altered  as  to  produce 
instinctively  other  responses,  such  as  fulfilling  the  original 
activity,  hunting,  mangling,  triumphing  over,  or  fleeing  from, 
the  thwarting  thing. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  decide  whether  this  general  tendency 
to  angry  behavior  of  some  sort  at  the  persistent  thwarting  of 
any  instinctive  response  is  itself  acquired  or  original,  or  to 
present  evidence  either  way.  It  is  probably  wisest  for  practical 
control  to  assume  that  it  is  original.     McDougall  assumes  not 


74  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

only  that  it  is  original  but  that  it  is  the  only  original  tendency, 
that  there  is  no  difference  in  the  response  whether  the  one 
thwarted  is  trying  to  sit  up,  to  run  to  a  given  point,  to  console 
an  infant,  to  curiously  examine  a  machine,  to  get  food  into  his 
mouth,  to  win  a  submissive  gaze  from  another  boy,  or  to 
diminish  pain,  that  what  I  have  listed  as  six  or  more  differ- 
entiated tendencies  is  one  indistinguishable  'expression'  of 
'anger.'  A  blow  he  says  arouses  angry  behavior  because  "the 
impulse  of  self-assertion"  is  thwarted.  ['08,  p.  60.]  The  in- 
stinct of  pugnacity,  in  his  opinion,  "has  no  specific  object  or 
objects.  .  .  .  The  condition  of  its  excitement  is  rather  any 
opposition  to  the  free  exercise  of  any  impulse,  any  obstruction 
to  the  activity  to  which  the  creature  is  impelled  by  any  one  of 
the  other  instincts.  And  its  impulse  is  to  break  down  any  such 
obstruction  and  to  destroy  whatever  offers  this  opposition." 
['08,  p.  59  f.] 

Kirkpatrick  says,  somewhat  more  concretely,  that  "any- 
thing interfering  with  the  child's  activities  or  wishes"  pro- 
duces "crying,  turning  away  the  head,  pushing  away  an  offend- 
ing object,  .  .  .  kicking  and  striking  ....  stamping  with 
the  feet  or  striking  the  head  against  the  floor."  ['03,  p.  104.] 
Such  behavior  is  possibly  the  foundation  of  all  the  later  varia- 
tions. Perez  ['82,  p.  75]  is  right  in  maintaining  that  the 
beginnings  of  such  behavior  come  very  early  in  life,  though 
perhaps  not  in  the  third  month,  as  he  states. 

The  case  of  a  child  held  against  his  will  would  then  be 
typical  of  all  pugnacious  behavior.  He  first  wriggles,  pulls, 
turns,  or  drops  to  the  floor ;  he  then  pushes,  kicks,  and  strikes, 
progressing  perhaps  to  biting,  butting,  and  the  miscellany  of 
rage  in  case  the  thwarting  continues. 

This  inclusion  of  all  varieties  of  angry  behavior  or  fighting 
movements  in  one  general  tendency  to  respond  to  obstruction, 
and  their  description  merely  by  their  effect  in  breaking  down 
the  obstruction  and  destroying  whatever  offers  it,  I  have  tried 
to  show  is  a  too  easy  account  of  the  facts.  But  it  is  a  great 
step  in  advance  of  no  definite  statement  at  all  as  to  what  origin- 


FOOD   GETTING^    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,    ANGER  75 

ally  makes  man  angry  or  what  man  originally  does  in  that 
condition. 

Stanley  Hall  would  criticize  both  it  and  my  account  as 
hopelessly  inadequate  to  the  rich  variety  of  original  nature,  but 
would  be,  I  think,  misled  by  the  emphasis  put  upon  eccentricities 
rather  than  ordinary  occurrences  by  his  correspondents  and 
their  confusion  of  dislike  and  intolerance  generally  with 
pugnacity. 

The  state  of  affairs,  angry  and  pugnacious  behavior,  is 
apparently  satisfying.  Of  course,  some  of  the  situations  that 
provoke  it  are  far  from  satisfying  intrinsically,  but  the  re- 
sponses made  to  them  are,  and  often  are  enough  so  to  make 
one  rather  seek  than  avoid  the  situation  itself.  The  misery 
reported  in  connection  with  anger  seems  to  be  an  after-effect, 
the  accompaniment  of  shame,  grief,  or  rational  deprecation  of 
one's  past  behavior,  or  of  the  exhaustion  due  to  it. 

The  flushing,  snarling,  flashing  eyes,  violent  heart-beat  and 
the  less  easily  observable  internal  activities  which  we  call  the 
feeling  of  anger  by  no  means  always  appear  in  response  to  the 
seven  sets  of  situations  listed  above.  The  separation  is  clearest 
in  defensive  fighting,  whose  inner  bodily  accompaniments  may 
be  those  of  fear,  but  is  observable  elsewhere.  Fighting  in  the 
strict  sense  and  anger  in  the  strict  sense  go  together,  not  always 
and  of  necessity,  because  they  are  mystically  born  together  in 
one  instinct,  but  often  and  by  the  contingency  that  a  situation 
is  such  as  arouses  fighting  by  one  combination  of  its  elements 
and  anger  by  another  combination. 

My  description  of  instinctive  fighting,  I  may  add,  is  confess- 
edly imperfect.  The  truth  will,  when  found,  carry  the  reduc- 
tion of  'pugnacity'  to  much  fuller  detail,  specifying  just  what 
sort  of  counter-blows,  scratches,  kicks,  shoves,  buttings  and  the 
like  are  connected  with  each  concrete  provocative  element  in 
the  various  attacks  from  and  attitudes  of  objects. 


76  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

ANGER 

The  older  view  was  that  a  certain  single  state  of  mind 
existed  called  'anger,'  that  this  was  aroused  by  many  situations 
and  that  it  expressed  itself  in  many  bodily  responses. 

Stanley  Hall  ['99]  mentions,  as  instinctive  causes  of  anger 
in  this  sense,  some  thirty  physical  features,  a  score  of  peculiar 
acts,  an  equal  number  of  features  of  dress,  a  multitude  of  habits, 
limitation  of  the  subject's  freedom,  the  thwarting  of  his  expec- 
tation or  purpose,  contradiction,  invasion  or  repression  of  his 
self,  injuries  to  pride,  injustice,  causes  of  jealousy,  and  many 
special  circumstances.  The  responses  as  described  by  Darwin 
are  as  follows : — 

"Rage. — I  have  already  had  occasion  to  treat  of  this  emotion 
in  the  third  chapter,  when  discussing  the  direct  influence  of  the 
excited  sensorium  on  the  body,  in  combination  with  the  effects 
of  habitually  associated  actions.  Rage  exhibits  itself  in  the 
most  diversified  manner.  The  heart  and  circulation  are  always 
affected ;  the  face  reddens  or  becomes  purple,  with  the  veins  on 
the  forehead  and  neck  distended.  The  reddening  of  the  skin 
has  been  observed  with  the  copper-coloured  Indians  of  South 
America,  and  even,  as  it  is  said,  on  the  white  cicatrices  left  by 
old  wounds  on  negroes.  Monkeys  also  redden  from  passion. 
With  one  of  my  own  infants,  under  four  months  old,  I  repeat- 
edly observed  that  the  first  symptom  of  an  approaching  passion 
was  the  rushing  of  the  blood  into  his  bare  scalp.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  action  of  the  heart  is  sometimes  so  much  impeded  by 
great  rage,  that  the  countenance  becomes  pallid  or  livid,  and 
not  a  few  men  with  heart-disease  have  dropped  down  dead 
under  this  powerful  emotion. 

The  respiration  is  likewise  affected;  the  chest  heaves,  and 
the  dilated  nostrils  quiver.  As  Tennyson  writes,  "sharp 
breaths  of  anger  puffed  her  fairy  nostrils  out."  Hence  we 
have  such  expressions  as  "breathing  out  vengeance,"  and  "fum- 
ing with  anger." 

The  excited  bram  gives  strength  to  the  muscles,  and  at  the 
same  time  energy  to  the  will.  The  body  is  commonly  held 
erect  ready  for  instant  action,  but  sometimes  it  is  bent  forward 
towards  the  offending  person,  with  the  limbs  more  or  less  rigid. 
The  mouth  is  generally  closed  with  firmness,  showing  fixed 


FOOD  GETTING,    PROTECTIVE  RESPONSES,  ANGER  ^^ 

determination  and  the  teeth  are  clenched  or  ground  together. 
Such  gestures  as  the  raising  of  the  arms,  with  the  fists  clenched, 
as  if  to  strike  the  offender,  are  common.  Few  men  in  a  great 
passion,  and  telling  someone  to  begone,  can  resist  acting  as  if 
they  intended  to  strike  or  push  the  man  violently  away.  The 
desire,  indeed,  to  strike  often  becomes  so  intolerably  strong, 
that  inanimate  objects  are  struck  or  dashed  to  the  ground ;  but 
the  gestures  frequently  become  altogether  purposeless  or 
frantic.  Young  children,  when  in  a  violent  rage  roll  on  the 
ground  on  their  backs  or  bellies,  screaming,  kicking,  scratching, 
or  biting  everything  within  reach.  So  it  is,  as  I  hear  from  Mr. 
Scott,  with  Hindoo  children ;  and  as  we  have  seen,  with  the 
young  of  the  anthropomorphous  apes. 

But  the  muscular  system  is  often  affected  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent way ;  for  trembling  is  a  frequent  consequence  of  extreme 
rage.  The  paralyzed  lips  then  refuse  to  obey  the  will,  "and 
the  voice  sticks  in  the  throat;"  or  it  is  rendered  loud,  harsh, 
and  discordant.  If  there  be  much  and  rapid  speaking,  the 
mouth  froths.  The  hair  sometimes  bristles ;  but  I  shall  return 
to  the  subject  in  another  chapter,  when  I  treat  of  the  mingled 
emotions  of  rage  and  terror.  There  is  in  most  cases  a  strongly- 
marked  frown  on  the  forehead ;  for  this  follows  from  the  sense 
of  anything  displeasing  or  difficult,  together  with  concentration 
of  mind.  But  sometimes  the  brow,  instead  of  l^eing  much 
contracted  and  lowered,  remains  smooth,  with  the  glaring  eyes 
kept  widely  open.  The  eyes  are  always  bright,  or  may,  as 
Homer  expresses  it,  glisten  with  fire.  They  are  sometimes 
bloodshot,  and  are  said  to  protrude  from  their  sockets — the 
result,  no  doubt,  of  the  head  being  gorged  with  blood,  as  shown 
by  the  veins  being  distended.  According  to  Gratiolet,  the 
pupils  are  always  contracted  in  rage,  and  I  hear  from  Dr. 
Crichton  Browne  that  this  is  the  case  in  the  fierce  delirium  of 
meningitis;  but  the  movements  of  the  iris  under  the  influence 
of  the  different  emotions  is  a  very  obscure  subject.  .  .  . 

Shakespeare  sums  up  the  chief  characteristics  of  rage  as 
follows : — 

"In  peace  there's  nothing  so  becomes  a  man, 
As  modest  stillness  and  humility ; 
But  when  the  blast  of  war  blows  in  our  ears. 
Then  imitate  the  action  of  the  tiger : 
Stiflfen  the  sinews,  summon  up  the  blood, 
Then  lend  the  eye  a  terrible  aspect; 


78  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

Now  set  the  teeth,  and  stretch  the  nostril  wide, 
Hold  hard  the  breath,  and  bend  up  every  spirit 
To  his  full  height!    On,   on,  you  noblest   English." 

Henry  V.,  Act  HI.  sc.  i. 

The  lips  are  sometimes  protruded  during  rage  in  a  manner, 
the  meaning  of  which  I  do  not  understand,  unless  it  depends 
on  our  descent  from  some  ape-like  animal.  Instances  have  been 
observed,  not  only  with  Europeans,  but  with  the  Australians 
and  Hindoos.  The  lips,  however,  are  much  more  commonly- 
retracted,  the  grinning  or  clenched  teeth  being  thus  exposed. 
This  has  been  noticed  by  almost  everyone  who  has  written  on 
expression.  The  appearance  is  as  if  the  teeth  were  uncovered, 
ready  for  seizing  or  tearing  an  enemy,  though  there  may  be  no 
intention  of  acting  in  this  manner.  Mr.  Dyson  Lacy  has  seen 
this  grinning  expression  with  the  Australians,  when  quarrelling, 
and  so  has  Gaika  with  the  Kaffirs  of  South  America.  Dickens, 
in  speaking  of  an  atrocious  murderer  who  had  just  been 
caught,  and  was  surrounded  by  a  furious  mob,  describes  "the 
people  as  jumping  up  one  behind  another,  snarling  with  their 
teeth,  and  making  at  him  like  wild  beasts."  Everyone  who  has 
had  much  to  do  with  young  children  must  have  seen  how 
naturally  they  take  to  biting,  when  in  a  passion.  It  seems 
as  instinctive  in  them  as  in  young  crocodiles,  who  snap  their 
little  jaws  as  soon  as  they  emerge  from  the  Ggg."  ['72,  pp. 
238-242.] 

We  may  add,  as  very  probably  instinctive,  the  flow  of  tears, 
spitting,*  yelling,  scratching,  kicking  and  slapping,  by  adults  as 
well  as  children,  pulling,  shaking  the  objects  attended  to  at  the 
time,  stamping,  jumping  up  and  down,  and  hitting  with  the 
hand. 

The  way  man  originally  feels  as  he  responds  to  the  appro- 
priate situations  by  escaping  restraint,  overcoming  a  moving 
obstacle,  counter-attack,  irrational  response  to  pain,  combat  in 
rivalry,  expelling  intruders,  and  in  struggling  against  thwarting 
in  general,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  in  the  conventional 
way. 

That  there  is  some  common  likeness  in  the  internal  responses 

♦See  Schneider  ['80,  p.  225  ff.]  for  descriptions  of  this  and  some  other 
forms  of  angry  behavior  and  their  homologues  in  the  mammals  in  general. 


FOOD   GETTING^    PROTECTIVE   RESPONSES,    ANGER  79 

of  man's  neurones  to  the  various  so-called  anger-provoking 
situations,  and  consequently  in  the  man's  feelings,  is  indubitable. 
Just  as  there  is  an  identical  element  in  the  internal  responses  of 
man's  neurones  to  very  intense  sounds,  whatever  their  pitch  or 
timbre,  whereby  he  in  each  case  has  a  'loudness'  sensation,  so 
there  is  some  common  feature  in  his  internal  cerebral  responses 
to  many  different  external  situations,  whereby  he  in  each  case 
has  a  resentment-anger-rage  emotion.  And  just  as  we  can,  in 
more  or  less  useful  ways,  describe  the  'loudness,'  as  by  con- 
trasting it  with  'lowness'  or  comparing  it  with  a  bright  light 
or  heavy  weight,  so  we  can  describe  the  inner,  subjective  'anger' 
by  its  differences  from  love  or  its  likeness  to  intense  joy.  But 
such  descriptions  are  of  little  value.  A  more  useful  definition 
of  the  common  element  in  angry  feelings  is  'the  internal  re- 
sponse of  consciousness  in  a  man  which  is  provoked  by  such 
and  such  definable  conditions  outside  and  inside  him/  just  as 
the  most  useful  description  of  'loudness'  is  'the  internal  response 
of  cotisciousness  in  a  man,  which  is  provoked  by  a  certain  out- 
side condition — air  vibrations  of  large  amplitude  in  his  neighr- 
borhood — and  a  certain  inside  condition — a  normal  ear  and 
brain.' 

To  the  questions,  'How  does  a  man  originally  feel  as  he 
responds  to  sound  air  vibrations  of  great  amplitude  ?'  and  'How 
does  a  man  originally  feel  as  he  responds  to  blows,  intrusion, 
being  thwarted  and  the  like?'  there  is,  in  each  case,  ultimately 
no  more  useful  answer  than  'As  he  does  feci.'  This  answer 
may  in  some  cases  be  reached  indirectly  by  first  analysing  the 
situation  into  its  elements,  stating  how  he  would  feel  in 
response  to  each  element,  and  stating  his  total  feeling  as  a 
resultant  of  the  comjxjund  of  elements ;  but,  first  or  last,  the 
essence  of  an  objective,  matter-of-fact  'description'  of  a  purely 
mental  state  has  to  be  the  naming  of  the  situation  which  pro- 
vokes it  and  the  creature  in  whom  it  is  provoked. 

An  objective  description  of  the  condition  in  the  neurones 
of  the  brain  which  parallels  this  common  element  of  feeling 
would,  of  course,  be  of  great  value.     We  should,  for  example. 


8o  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

then  see  the  mechanism  whereby,  in  the  course  of  training,  such 
different  situations  as  'a  blow  in  the  face,'  'being  stared  at 
insolently,'  'having  one's  hat  blow  off,'  'hearing  a  pupil  say  "He 
ain't,"  '  and  'seeing  a  badly-painted  picture,'  all  arouse  similar 
responses.  For  such  an  objective  description  knowledge  is 
lacking. 

What  I  have  written  concerning  the  common  conscious 
element  of  angry  behavior  applies  equally  to  the  conscious 
elements  of  fear,  affection,  self-assertion  and  all  the  other 
instinctive  emotions.  Henceforth,  then,  I  shall  dispense  with 
statements  about  such  conscious  elements  and  about  the 
hidden,  internal,  neural  responses  which  parallel  them.  Cer- 
tain general  problems  concerning  them  will  be  reviewed  in 
Chapter  XI. 


chapter  vii 

Responses  to  the  Behavior  of  Other  Human  Beings 

motherly  behavior 

Human  intercourse  and  institutions  are  as  surely  rooted  and 
grounded  in  original  nature  as  man's  struggles  with  the  rest  of 
nature  for  food  and  safety.  The  first,  and  all  in  all  the  great- 
est, social  bond  and  condition  is  the  original  behavior  of  mother 
to  young. 

All  women  possess  originally,  from  early  childhood  to 
death,  some  interest  in  human  babies,  and  a  responsiveness  to 
the  instinctive  looks,  calls,  gestures  and  cries  of  infancy  and 
childhood,  being  satisfied  by  childish  gurglings,  smiles  and 
affectionate  gestures,  and  moved  to  instinctive  comforting  acts 
by  childish  signs  of  pain,  grief  and  misery.  Brutal  habits  may 
destroy,  or  competing  habits  overgrow,  or  the  lack  of  exercise 
weaken,  these  tendencies,  but  they  are  none  the  less  as  original 
as  any  fact  in  human  nature 

With  the  changes  in  the  woman's  nature  and  life  that  con- 
ception and  child-birth  bring,  these  tendencies  gain  new  power 
and  special  attachments.  To  a  woman  who  has  given  birth  to 
a  child,  a  baby  to  see  and  hold  and  suckle  is  perhaps  the  most 
potent  satisfaction  life  can  offer,  its  loss  the  cause  of  saddest 
yearning.  To  a  woman  who  has  given  birth  to  a  child,  the 
baby  she  sees,  holds  and  nurses  appeals  almost  irresistibly  when 
it  gives  the  cry  of  hunger,  pain  or  distress,  the  start  of  surprise, 
the  scream  of  fear,  the  smiles  of  comfort,  the  cooing  and  gurg- 
ling and  shouting  of  vocal  play.  She  cuddles  it  when  it  cries, 
smiles  when  it  smiles,  fondles  and  coos  to  it  in  turn.  As  the 
first  human  face  it  sees  and  turns  to  follow,  as  the  familiar  form 
which  it  nestles  against  in  comfort  and  clutches  in  fear,  she 
6        '  8i 


82  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

wins  its  tokens  of  affection.  When  it  later  points  at  objects, 
she  looks  and  shares  its  interest.  And  later  still,  every  signal 
of  joy,  or  grief,  or  pain  by  this  being-  whom  she  has  held  and 
nursed  and  fondled,  has  its  quick  response.  In  all  this,  original 
nature  is  the  prime  mover  and  essential  continuing  force. 

This  series  of  situations  and  responses  constitutes  the 
'maternal  instinct'  in  its  most  typical  form.  But,  as  do  all 
original  tendencies,  it  acts  somehow,  though  its  ordinary  situa- 
tions be  complicated  or  deformed.  To  have  given  birth  to  a 
child,  though  ordinarily  an  enormous  intensifier  of  maternal 
care,  is  not  a  sine  qua  non.  The  sequence  may,  though  less 
surely,  begin  with  holding  and  nursing.  Similarly,  suckling 
the  child,  though  ordinarily  an  enormous  intensifier  of  maternal 
care,  may  be  absent  but  still  leave  the  situation  potent  enough 
to  arouse  the  later  sequences.  So  childless  women,  who  lack 
also  the  stimuli  of  care  of  early  infancy,  may  yet  manifest  the 
later  tendencies  toward  the  children  they  adopt. 

The  added  stimuli  of  bearing  and  nursing  children  may 
occasionally  decrease  the  general  womanly  benevolence  and 
protectiveness  toward  children  and  all  creatures  and  things 
that  simulate  the  appeal  of  dependence  on  a  mother's  care. 
When  they  do  so,  it  is  by  restricting  the  responses  concerned  to 
a  particular  object  in  a  fetichistic  way.  But  I  am  confident 
that  in  general  motherhood  increases  general  tenderness. 

Boys  and  men  share  more  in  the  instinctive  good  will 
toward  children  than  traditional  opinion  would  admit,  though 
the  tendencies  are  not  so  strong,  and  the  responses  are  different. 
Very  weak  in  the  specific  tendencies  to  clasp  and  carry  an  infant 
(the  proverbial  distress  and  awkwardness  of  the  male  when 
an  infant  is  thrust  into  his  arms,  as  contrasted  with  the  typical 
woman's  'Let  me  hold  him,'  is  at  bottom  instinctive)  and  to 
fondle  and  prattle  to  it,  and  lacking  also  the  special  incitement 
of  the  tendency  due  to  the  inner  changes  of  child-birth  and 
lactation,  they  yet  in  their  own  way  respond  to  many  of  its 
appeals.  /  To  offer  a  little  child  scraps  of  food  and  see  it  eat, 
to  snatch  it  from  peril  by  animals,  and  to  smile  approvingly  at 


THE  SOCIAL  INSTINCTS  83 

its  more  vigorous  antics,  seem  to  me  to  be  truly  original  ten- 
dencies of  the  human  male.  Kirkpatrick  notes  ['03,  p.  119] 
that  children  "seek  the  protection  of  any  human  being,  if 
frightened  by  an  animal."     They  usually  get  it. 

i^atzel,  writing  of  primitive  man,  says :  "Motherly  love  is  so 
natural  a  sentiment  that  the  modes  of  expressing  it  need  no  au- 
thentication ;  but  we  often  come  across  instances  of  tenderness 
on  the  father's  part  toward  his  offspring.  No  doubt  there  are 
cases  of  cruelty,  but  these  are  exceptions.  All  who  have  gone 
deeply  into  the  question  agree  in  praising  the  peaceful  and 
kindly  way  in  which  those  of  one  household  live  together 
among  uncorrupted  natural  races."  ['85-'88,  Eng.  transl.  of 
'96,  Vol.  I,  p.  122,  from  2d  German  edition  of  '94-'95.] 

Wcstermarck  says:  "The  parents'  duty  of  taking  care  of 
their  offspring  is,  in  the  first  place,  based  on  the  sentiment  of 
parental  affection.  That  the  maternal  sentiment  is  universal  in 
mankind  is  a  fact  too  generally  admitted  to  need  demonstration ; 
not  so  the  father's  love  of  his  children.  Savage  men  are  com- 
monly supposed  to  be  very  indifferent  towards  their  offspring; 
but  a  detailed  study  of  facts  leads  us  to  a  different  conclusion. 
It  appears  that,  among  the  lower  races,  the  paternal  sentiment 
is  hardly  less  universal  than  the  maternal,  although  it  is  prob- 
ably never  so  strong  and  in  many  cases  distinctly  feeble.  But 
more  often  it  displays  itself  with  considerable  intensity  even 
among  the  rudest  savages.  In  the  often-quoted  case  of  the 
Patagonian  chief  who,  in  a  moment  of  passion,  dashed  his 
little  son  with  the  utmost  violence  against  the  rocks  because  he 
let  a  basket  of  eggs  which  the  father  handed  to  him  fall  down, 
we  have  only  an  instance  of  savage  impetuosity.  The  same 
father  'would,  at  any  other  time,  have  been  the  most  daring, 
the  most  enduring,  and  the  most  self-devoted'  in  the  support 
and  defence  of  his  child.  Similarly  the  Central  Australian 
natives,  in  fits  of  sudden  passion,  when  hardly  knowing  what 
they  do,  sometimes  treat  a  child  with  great  severity ;  but  as  a 
rule,  to  which  there  are  very  few  exceptions,  they  are  kind  and 
considerate  to  their  children,  the  men  as  well  as  the  women 
carrying  them  when  they  get  tired  on  the  march,  and  always 
seeing  that  they  get  a  good  share  of  any  food.  All  authorities 
agree  that  the  Australian  Black  is  affectionate  to  his  children. 
"From  observation  of  various  tribes  in  far  distant  parts  of 
Australia,"  says  Mr.  Howitt,  "I  can  assert  confidently  that  love 


84  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

for  their  children  is  a  marked  feature  in  the  aboriginal  character. 
I  cannot  recollect  having  ever  seen  a  parent  beat  or  cruelly  use 
a  child ;  and  a  short  road  to  the  good  will  of  the  parent  is,  as 
amongst  us,  by  noticing  and  admiring  their  children.  No 
greater  grief  could  be  exhibited,  by  the  fondest  parents  in  the 
most  civilised  community  at  the  death  of  some  little  child, 
than  that  which  I  have  seen  exhibited  in  an  Australian  native 
camp,  not  only  by  the  immediate  parents,  but  by  the  whole 
related  group."  Other  representatives  of  the  lowest  savagery, 
as  the  Veddahs  and  Fuegians,  are  likewise  described  as  tender 
parents.  Though  few  people  have  acquired  a  worse  reputation 
for  cruelty  than  the  Fijians,  even  the  greatest  censurer  of  their 
character  admits  that  the  exhibition  of  parental  love  among 
them  "is  sometimes  such  as  to  be  worthy  of  admiration" ; 
whilst,  according  to  another  authority,  "it  is  truly  touching  to 
see  how  parents  are  attached  to  their  children."  The  Bangala 
of  the  Upper  Congo,  "swayed  one  moment  by  a  thirst  for  blood 
and  indulging  in  the  most  horrible  orgies,  .  .  .  may  yet  the 
next  be  found  approaching  their  homes  looking  forward  with 
the  liveliest  interest  to  the  caresses  of  their  wives  and  children. 
Carver  asserts  that  he  never  saw  among  any  other  people 
greater  proof  of  parental  or  filial  tenderness  than  among  the 
North  American  Naudowessies.  Among  the  Point  Barrow 
Eskimo  "the  affection  of  parents  for  their  children  is  extreme"  ; 
and  the  same  seems  to  be  the  case  among  the  Eskimo  in  gen- 
eral. Concerning  the  Aleuts  Veniaminof  wrote  long  ago : — 
"The  children  are  often  well  fed  and  satisfied,  while  the  parents 
almost  perish  with  hunger.  The  daintiest  morsel,  the  best 
dress,  is  always  kept  for  them."  Mr.  Hooper,  again,  found 
parental  love  nowhere  more  strongly  exemplified  than  among 
the  Chukchi ;  "the  natives  absolutely  dote  upon  their  children." 
Innumerable  facts  might  indeed  be  quoted  to  prove  that 
parental  affection  is  not  a  late  product  of  civilisation,  but  a 
normal  feature  of  the  savage  mind  as  it  is  known  to  us. 

When  dealing  with  the  origin  of  the  altruistic  sentiment 
we  shall  find  reason  to  believe  that  paternal  affection  not  only 
prevails  among  existing  men,  savage  and  civilised,  but  that  it 
belonged  to  the  human  race  from  the  very  beginning."  ['06, 
'08,  vol.  I,  pp.  529-532.] 

Male  thoughtlessness  and  brutality  toward  children,  and 
whatever  living  being  or  thing  makes  a  similar  appeal,  is  due 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  85 

not  to  total  absence  of  kindliness,  but  rather  to  the  presence  of 
the  competing  tendencies  of  the  hunting  instinct,  which  is  as 
much  stronger  in  men  than  in  women  as  the  maternal  instinct 
is  stronger  in  women  than  in  men. 

Filial  Behavior. — Original  nature,  careless  of  equity,  pro- 
vides no  filial  instinct  of  return  devotion.  The  nearest  ap- 
proach to  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  young  to  follow  after,  appeal 
to,  and  take  a  submissive  attitude  toward,  certain  of  thear  own 
species.  These  responses  the  mother  earns  if  she  gets  them 
at  all.  They  more  often  attach  themselves  to  an  older  brother 
or  sister,  to  the  less  loving  but  more  exciting  father,  or  to  a 
dominant  playmate.  Stable  boys,  policemen,  the  well-dressed 
teacher,  or  the  female  relative  in  a  higher  station  of  life,  may 
rob  the  mother  of  the  little  that  nature  under  better  auspices 
might  allow  her.  One  must  be  a  mother  for  motherhood's 
sake.  Assurance  of  instinctive  filial  devotion  would  perhaps 
be  better  gained  by  the  demands  which  a  commanding  behavior 
issues  than  by  the  sacrifices  of  motherly  love. 

RESPONSES  TO  THE  PRESENCE,  APPROVAL  AND  SCORN  OF  MEN 

Gregariousness. — Man  responds  to  the  absence  of  human 
beings  by  discomfort,  and  to  their  presence  by  a  positive  satis- 
faction. Kidd's  statement  about  Kafir  children  holds  true  of 
man  in  general.  In  his  games  and  work,  too,  "there  is  much 
that  looks  like  sheer  animal  love  for  gregarious  fellowship." 
['06,  p.  298.]*     To  be  alone  is  as  James  says  ['93,  vol.  2,  p. 

*Kidd  says  elsewhere:  "The  black  child  is  sociable  from  infancy, 
and  it  is  very  rare  to  find  a  boy  or  girl  who  loves  to  sit  alone  and  to  brood 
in  silence,  or  to  wander  off  in  solitude.  Occasionally  a  child  seems 
devoid  of  social  tendencies,  and  in  that  case  a  witch-doctor  is  sent  for 
to  cure  the  child.  But  if  any  definite  anti-social  tendencies  were  to  mani- 
fest themselves,  the  child  would  find  but  scant  leniency  in  his  treatment ; 
such  a  quality  would  be  promptly  squashed  in  the  interests  of  the  life  of 
the  clan.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  rarely  manifested  except  in  those 
natives  who  have  been  in  contact  with  civilization.  According  to  Kafir 
thought  non-sociability  is  one  thing,  which  is  but  abnormal;  anti-sociability 
is  quite  another  thing,   for   it   is   the  vilest  of  evils,   and  is  considered 


86  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

430]  one  of  the  greatest  of  evils  for  him,  so  that  solitary  con- 
finement is  regarded  as  a  cruel  torture.  Restlessness  and,  I 
think,  wandering  about,  are  further  original  responses  to  isola- 
tion. The  rich  satisfaction  of  the  presence  of  a  single  com- 
panion consists  not  only  in  allowing  various  desirable  activities 
which  need  a  fellowman  as  their  stimulus,  but  also  in  the  mere 
fact  that  he  is  there.  Being  one  of  a  crowd  adds  new  instinc- 
tive exhilarations,  irrespective  of  any  particular  benefits  the 
situation  may  be  expected  to  produce.  McDougall  and  James 
have  both  emphasized  the  part  this  tendency  plays  in  our 
recreations.     The  former  says : 

"In  civilized  communities  we  may  see  evidence  of  the  oper- 
ation of  this  instinct  on  every  hand.  For  all  but  a  few  excep- 
tional, and  generally  highly  cultivated,  persons  the  one  essential 
condition  of  recreation  is  the  being  one  of  a  crowd.  The 
normal  daily  recreation  of  the  population  of  our  towns  is  to  go 
out  in  the  evening  and  to  walk  up  and  down  the  streets  in 
which  the  throng  is  densest — the  Strand,  Oxford  Street,  or  the 
Old  Kent  Road;  and  the  smallest  occasion — a  foreign  prince 
driving  to  a  railway  station  or  a  Lord  Mayor's  Show — will 
line  the  streets  for  hours  with  many  thousands  whose  interest 
in  the  prince  or  the  show  alone  would  hardly  lead  them  to  take 
a  dozen  steps  out  of  their  way.  On  their  few  short  holidays 
the  working  classes  rush  together  from  town  and  country  alike 
to  those  resorts  in  which  they  are  assured  of  the  presence  of  a 
large  mass  of  their  fellows.  It  is  the  same  instinct  working 
on  a  slightly  higher  plane  that  brings  tens  of  thousands  to  the 
cricket  and  football  grounds  on  half-holidays.  Crowds  of  this 
sort  exert  a  great  fascination  and  afford  a  more  complete  satis- 
faction to  the  gregarious  instinct  than  the  mere  aimless  aggre- 
gations of  the  streets,  because  all  their  members  are  simultan- 
eously concerned  with  the  same  objects,  all  are  moved  by  the 
same  emotions,  all  shout  and  applaud  together.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  suppose  that  it  is  merely  the  individuals'  interest  in 
the  game  that  brings  these  huge  crowds  together.  What 
proportion  of  the  ten  thousand  witnesses  of  a  football  match 

monstrous.  Tt  is  safe  to  say  that  sociability  is  one  of  the  first  qualities  to 
be  developed  in  a  black  child,  and  grows  throughout  life.  The  Kafir's 
love  for  the  social  life  of  the  kraal  is  far  stronger  than  even  the  under- 
graduate's love  of  the  social  life  in  the  college  courts."     ['06,  p.  119  f.] 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  87 

would  Stand  for  an  hour  or  more  in  the  wind  and  rain,  if  each 
man  were  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  crowd  and  saw  only  the 
players  ? 

Even  cultured  minds  are  not  immune  to  the  fascination  of 
the  herd.  Who  has  not  felt  it  as  he  has  stood  at  the  Mansion 
House  crossing  or  walked  down  Cheapside?  How  few  prefer 
at  nightfall  the  lonely  Thames  Embankment,  full  of  mysterious 
poetry  as  the  barges  sweep  slowly  onward  with  the  flood-tide, 
to  the  garish  crowded  Strand  a  hundred  yards  away!  We 
cultivated  persons  usually  say  to  ourselves,  when  we  yield  to 
this  fascination,  that  we  are  taking  an  intelligent  interest  in 
the  life  of  the  people.  But  such  intellectual  interest  plays  but 
a  small  part,  and  beneath  works  the  powerful  impulse  of  this 
ancient  instinct. 

The  possession  of  this  instinct,  even  in  great  strength,  does 
not  necessarily  imply  sociability  of  temperament.  Many  a 
man  leads  in  London  a  most  solitary,  unsociable  life,  who  yet 
would  find  it  hard  to  live  far  away  from  the  thronged  city. 
Such  men  are  like  Mr.  Galton's  oxen,  unsociable  but  gregarious : 
and  they  illustrate  the  fact  that  sociability,  although  it  has  the 
gregarious  instinct  at  its  foundation,  is  a  more  complex,  more 
highly  developed,  tendency.  As  an  element  of  this  more  com- 
plex tendency  to  sociability,  the  instinct  largely  determines  the 
form  of  the  recreations  of  even  the  cultured  classes,  and  is  the 
root  of  no  small  part  of  the  pleasure  we  find  in  attendance  at 
the  theatre,  at  concerts,  lectures,  and  all  such  entertainments. 
How  much  more  satisfying  is  a  good  play  if  one  sits  in  a  well- 
filled  theatre  than  if  half  the  seats  are  empty;  especially  if  the 
house  is  unanimous  and  loud  in  the  expression  of  its  feelings! 
[McDougall,  '08,  pp.  86-87.] 

James  says  of  the  universal  human  love  of  festivities,  cere- 
monies and  the  like,  "There  is  another  sort  of  human  play, 
into  which  higher  aesthetic  feelings  enter.  I  refer  to  that  love 
of  festivities,  ceremonies,  ordeals,  etc.,  which  seems  to  be 
universal  in  our  species.  The  lowest  savages  have  their  dances, 
more  or  less  formally  conducted.  The  various  religions  have 
their  solemn  rites  and  exercises  and  civic  and  mihtary  power 
symbolize  their  grandeur  by  processions  and  celebrations  of 
diverse  sorts.  We  have  our  operas  and  parties  and  masquer- 
ades. An  element  common  to  all  these  ceremonial  games,  as 
they  may  be  called,  is  the  excitement  of  concerted  action  as  one 
of  an  organized  crowd.     The  same  acts,  performed  with  a 


88  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

crowd,  seem  to  mean  vastly  more  than  when  performed  alone. 
A  walk  with  the  people  on  a  holiday  afternoon,  an  excursion  to 
drink  beer  or  coffee  at  a  popular  'resort,'  or  an  ordinary  ball 
room,  are  examples  of  this.  Not  only  are  we  amused  at  seeing 
so  many  strangers,  but  there  is  a  distinct  stimulation  at  feeling 
our  share  in  their  collective  life.  The  perception  of  them  is 
the  stimulus  and  our  reaction  upon  it  is  our  tendency  to  join 
them  and  do  what  they  are  doing  and  our  unwillingness  to  be 
the  first  to  leave  off  and  go  home  alone."     ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  428.] 

A  similar  argument  could  be  made  in  the  case  of  our  reli- 
gious worship,  the  organization  of  schools,  the  preference  of 
young  women  for  factory  labor  over  domestic  service,  and 
almost  any  other  human  activity. 

Responses  of  Attention  to  Human  Beings. — Man  has  a 
special  original  interest  in  the  behavior  of  other  men.  Doubt- 
less this,  in  infancy,  is  largely  due  to  the  mere  variety  in  move- 
ment which  human  beings  have  in  common  with  dogs,  mechani- 
cal toys,  the  leaves  of  trees  and  the  like.  But  it  is  hardly  wholly 
due  thereto.  The  human  face  is  too  early  singled  out  from 
other  objects  and  too  constantly  a  controller  of  attention. 
Chamberlain  hardly  exaggerates  when  he  says  that  "the  face 
of  its  elders  is  the  child's  chart  and  compass  in  the  first  voyages 
of  life."  ['00,  p.  189.]  Evidence  is  found  in  the  difference 
between  the  sexes  in  respect  to  it.  If  measurements  are  taken 
of  the  strength  of  the  interest  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
traits  of  people  compared  to  the  strength  of  the  interest  in  the 
mechanical  operations  of  things,  women  differ  notably  from 
men.  It  seems  necessary,  therefore,  to  admit  that  the  specific 
form  and  features  and  characteristic  behavior  of  man,  as  in 
smiling,  crying,  or  jabbering,  attract  attention  to  him  and  what 
he  does. 

Attention-getting. — There  seems  to  be,  though  one  cannot 
be  sure,  a  real,  though  easily  counteracted,  tendency  to  respond 
to  the  presence  of  an  inoffensive  human  being  by  approaching, 
gesticulating,  calling,  and  general  restless  annoyance  until  he 
notices  one.  A  man  entering  a  room  where  another  stands 
absorbed  will  often,  in  spite  of  the  conventions  of  cityfied  habits. 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  89 

feel  a  measurable  irritation,  walk  past  him,  ring  for  a  waiter, 
or  the  like,  though  he  would  not  have  felt  and  done  so,  had  the 
room  been  empty.  Children  seem  to  act  in  this  way  irrespec- 
tive both  of  any  acquired  intention  to  win  approval,  and  of  the 
more  aggressive  behavior  which  we  call  self-assertiveness  or 
display.  • 

Responses  to  Approving  and  to  Scornful  Behavior. — To 
the  situation,  'intimate  approval,  as  by  smiles,  pats,  admission 
to  companionship  and  the  like,  from  one  to  whom  he  has  the 
inner  response  of  submissiveness,'  and  to  the  situation,  'humble 
approval,  as  by  admiring  glances,  from  anybody,'  man  responds 
originally  by  great  satisfaction.  The  withdrawal  of  approving 
intercourse  by  masters  and  looks  of  scorn  and  derision  from 
anyone  originally  provoke  a  discomfort  that  may  strengthen  to 
utter  wretchedness. 

The  reader  will  understand  that  the  approval  and  disap- 
proval which  are  thus  satisfying  and  annoying  to  the  natural 
man  are  far  from  identical,  in  either  case,  with  the  behavior 
which  proceeds  from  cultivated  moral  approbation  and  condem- 
nation. The  sickly  frown  of  a  Sunday-school  teacher  at  her 
scholar's  mischief  may  be  prepotently  an  attention  to  him  rather 
than  the  others,  may  contain  a  semi-envious  recognition  of  him 
as  a  force  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  may  even  reveal  a  lurking 
admiration  for  his  deviltry.  It  then  will  be  instinctively  ac- 
cepted as  approval. 

Darwin  long  ago  noted  the  extraordinarily  ill  proportioned 
misery  that  comes  from  committing  some  blunder  in  society 
whereat  people  involuntarily  'look  down'  on  one  for  an  instant. 
Except  for  him,  little  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  originality 
of  the  hunger  of  man  for  the  externals  of  admiration  and  the 
intolerability  of  objective  scorn  and  derision.  Yet  these  forces 
of  approval  and  disapproval  in  appropriate  form  from  those 
above  and  those  below  us  in  mastery-status,  are  and  have  been 
potent  social  controls.  For  example  the  'discipline'  of  a 
humane  home  or  school  today  relies  almost  entirely  upon  such 
approval  from  above,  and  finds  it  even  more  effective  than 


90  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

severe  sensuous  pains  and  deprivations.  The  elaborate  para- 
phernalia and  rites  of  fashion  in  clothes  exist  chiefly  by  virtue 
of  their  value  as  means  of  securing  diffuse  notice  and  approval. 
The  primitive  sex  display  is  now  a  minor  cause:  women  ob- 
viously dress  for- other  women's  eyes.  Much  the  same  is  true 
of  subservience  to  fashions  in  furniture,  food,  manners,  morals 
and  religion.  The  institution  of  tipping,  which  began  per- 
haps in  kindliness  and  was  fostered  by  economic  self-interest, 
is  now  well-nigh  impregnable  because  no  man  is  brave  enough 
to  withstand  the  scorn  of  a  line  of  lackeys  whom  he  heartily 
despises,  or  of  a  few  onlookers  whom  he  will  never  see  again. 

Best  of  all  illustrations  of  the  potent  craving  for  objective 
approval,  perhaps,  is  offered  by  Veblen's  brilliant  analysis  of 
the  economic  activities  of  the  leisure  class.*  These  he  finds 
to  be  essentially  vicarious  consumption  and  conspicuous  waste, 
or  the  maintenance  of  a  useless  retinue  and  public  prodigality 
in  order  to  show  that  you  have  more  than  you  can  use,  and  so 
to  fix  upon  you  the  admiring  glances  of  those  who  can  afford 
to  waste  less  or  nothing  at  all. 

Responses  by  Approving  and  Scornful  Behavior. — To  mani- 
fest approving  and  disapproving  behavior  is  as  original  a 
tendency  as  to  be  satisfied  and  annoyed  by  them.  Smiles, 
respectful  stares  and  encouraging  shouts  occur,  I  think,  as 
instinctive  responses  to  relief  from  hunger,  rescue  from  fear, 
gorgeous  display,  instinctive  acts  of  strength  and  daring, 
victory,  and  other  impressive  instinctive  behavior  that  is  harm- 
less to  the  onlooker.  Similarly,  frowns,  hoots  and  sneers  seem 
bound  as  original  responses  to  the  observation  of  empty-handed- 
ness,  deformity,  physical  meanness,  pusillanimity,  and  defect. 
As  in  the  case  of  all  original  tendencies,  such  behavior  is  early 
complicated,  and  in  the  end  much  distorted,  by  training;  but 
the  resulting  total  cannot  be  explained  by  nurture  alone. 

In  this  I  may  be  wrong,  for  two  very  gifted  students  of  the 
social  instincts  assert : — the  one,  that  approval  and  disapproval 

f Thorstein  Veblen,.  The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,  '99. 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  91 

as  responses  have  no  specific  original  roots  [McDougall,  '08, 
p.  217  f.]  ;  and  the  other,  that  responses  to  approving  and 
disapproving  facial  expressions  as  situations  are  "apparently- 
learned  much  as  other  things.  .  .  .  The  child  comes  in  time  to 
associate  the  wrinkles  that  form  a  smile  with  pleasant  experi- 
ences— fondling,  coaxing,  offering  of  playthings  or  of  the  bottle, 
and  so  on"  [Cooley,  '02,  p.  64].  But  Professor  McDougall's 
opinion  might  be  explained  by  the  fact  that,  having  in  mind 
judgments  of  approval  and  disapproval  of  the  sophisticated 
moral  sort,  and  finding  no  two  single  primary  emotions  cor- 
responding to  them,  he  assumes  that  there  are  no  two  original 
lines  of  behavior  on  the  basis  of  which  these  judgments  may 
later  be  formed.  Now,  the  absence  of  primary  emotions  of 
approval  and  disapproval  does  not  prevent  the  presence  of 
original  tendencies  to  scowl  and  smile  beyond  those  explained 
by  the  instincts  of  pugnacity  and  maternal  affection.  Cooley's 
inference  I  simply  cannot  accept.  He  admits,  as  everyone  must, 
that  facial  expressions  are  made  instinctively;  and  that  is  one 
of  the  best  of  reasons  for  expecting  them  to  be  responded  to 
instinctively.  Also  I  doubt  whether  parents  habitually  smile 
at  children  when  they  give  them  food  and  toys  and  other 
indulgences ;  they  smile  oftener  when  they  do  not  have  to  give 
such, — when  the  infant  placidly  kicks  up  his  legs,  or  smiles,  or 
says  ah-goo,  or  displays  his  repertory  of  tricks.  Apart  from 
probabilities  my  observations  lead  me  to  believe  that,  though 
secondary  to  the  voice  and  to  gross  bodily  attitudes  and  ges- 
tures, facial  expressions  instinctively  made  are  instinctively 
responded  to,  Cooley,  it  may  be  added,  might  accept  all  of  the 
account  given  here,  save  the  use  of  facial  expression.  He  him- 
self notes  "as  early  as  the  fourth  month  a  'hurt'  way  of  crying 
which  seemed  to  indicate  a  sense  of  personal  slight.  It  was 
quite  different  from  the  cry  of  pain  or  anger,  but  seemed  about 
the  same  as  the  cry  of  fright.  The  slightest  tone  of  reproof 
would  produce  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  people  took  notice  and 
laughed  and  encouraged  she  was  hilarious."     ['02,  p.  116  f.] 


92  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

MASTERING  AND  SUBMISSIVE  BEHAVIOR 

There  is,  I  believe,  an  original  tendency  to  respond  to  'the 
presence  of  a  human  being  who  notices  one,  but  without  approv- 
ing or  submissive  behavior'  by  holding  the  head  up  and  a  little 
forward,  staring  at  him  or  not  looking  at  him  at  all,  or  alter- 
nating staring  and  ignoring,  doing  whatever  one  is  doing  some- 
what more  rapidly  and  energetically  and  making  displays  of 
activity,  and  by  satisfaction  if  the  person  looks  on  without 
interference  or  scorn.  There  is  a  further  tendency  to  go  up  to 
such  an  unprotesting  human  being,  increasing  the  erection  and 
projection  of  the  head,  looking  him  in  the  eye,  and  perhaps 
nudging  or  shoving  him.  There  is  also  an  original  tendency  to 
feel  satisfaction  at  the  appearance  and  continuance  of  submis- 
sive behavior  on  the  part  of  the  human  beings  one  meets.  These 
tendencies  we  may  call  the  instinct  of  attempt  at  mastery.  Such 
behavior  is  much  c'vmmoner  in  the  male  than  in  the  female.  In 
her  the  forward  thrust  of  the  head,  the  approach,  displays  of 
strength,  nudging  and  shoving  are  also  commonly  replaced  by 
facial  expressions  and  other  less  gross  movements. 

If  the  human  being  who  answers  these  tendencies  assumes 
a  submissive  behavior,  in  essence  a  lowering  of  head  and 
shoulders,  wavering  glance,  absence  of  all  preparations  for 
attack,  general  weakening  of  muscle  tonus,  and  hesitancy  in 
movement,  the  movements  of  attempt  at  mastery  become  modi- 
fied into  attempts  at  the  more  obvious  swagger,  strut  and  glare 
of  triumph.  The  submissive  attitude  may  also  provoke  the 
master  to  protect  the  submissive  one.  If  the  human  being  pro- 
tests by  thrusting  his  head  up  and  out,  glaring  back,  and  not 
giving  way  to  advance,  the  aggressor  either  becomes  submissive 
or  there  is  more  or  less  of  a  conflict  of  looks,  gestures,  yells,  or 
actual  attacks,  until,  as  was  described  under  the  fighting  instinct, 
the  submission  of  one  or  the  exhaustion  of  both. 

There  is  an  original  tendency  to  respond  to  the  situation, 
*the  presence  of  a  human  being  larger  than  oneself,  of  angry 
or  mastering  aspect,'  and  to  blows  and  restraint,  by  submissive 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  S>3 

behavior.  When  weak  from  wounds,  sickness  or  fatigue,  the 
tendency  is  stronger.  The  man  who  is  bigger,  who  can  out- 
yell  and  outstare  us,  who  can  hit  us  without  our  hitting  him, 
and  who  can  keep  us  from  moving,  does  originally  extort  a 
crestfallen,  abashed  physique  and  mind.  Women  in  general 
are  thus  by  original  nature  submissive  to  men  in  general.  Sub- 
missive behavior  is  apparently  not  annoying  when  assumed  as 
the  instinctive  response  to  its  natural  stimulus.  Indeed,  it  is 
perhaps  a  common  satisfier. 

Every  human  being  thus  tends  by  original  nature  to  arrive 
at  a  status  of  mastery  or  submission  toward  every  other  human 
being,  and  even  under  the  more  intelligent  customs  of  civilized 
life  somewhat  of  the  tendency  persists  in  many  men. 

The  original  behavior  in  mastery  and  submission,  and  in 
approving,  disapproving,  being  approved  and  being  scorned, 
derided  and  neglected,  becomes  very  much  complicated  by  dif- 
ferences in  the  sex  of  the  person  who  is  the  situation,  and  in 
the  sex  and  maturity  of  the  person  who  is  responding,  by  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  persons  who  are  the  situation,  and 
by  the  presence  in  the  situation  of  elements  provocative  of 
curiosity,  fear,  anger,  repugnance,  the  hunting  instinct,  kindli- 
ness, sexual  attraction  and  coy  behavior.  My  account  of  at- 
tempt at  mastery,  for  instance,  would  be  only  partly  true  of  any 
cases  save  those  where  the  situation  and  the  response  were  the 
behaviors  of  two  males  of  about  the  same  degree  of  physical 
maturity.  Mastery  and  submission  are  fit  illustrations  of  the 
universal  fact  that  the  many  unit  tendencies  to  respond  to 
characteristic  situations  combine  in  elaborately  complex  totals. 
This  fact  makes  the  original  social  tendencies  of  man  seem,  at 
first  sight,  like  a  hopelessly  unpredictable  muddle  of  domineer- 
ing, subservience,  notice,  disregard,  sex  pursuit,  aversion,  show- 
ing off,  shyness,  fear,  confidence,  cruelty  and  kindness.  It  also 
makes  such  unit-tendencies  as  I  have  described  under  approval, 
scorn,  mastery  and  submission  seem  abstract  and  schematic, 
as  indeed,  they  are. 

Space  is  lacking  in  this  book,  and  knowledge  in  its  author, 


94  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

to  trace  in  the  bewildering  complexes  of  human  intercourse, 
the  combined  efifect  of  the  unit-tendencies  which  I  have  out- 
lined. We  may  be  confident,  however,  that,  did  we  know 
enough,  we  should  find  that  whether  a  person  will  in  a  given 
case  be  shy,  or  indulge  in  display,  or  alternate  between  the  two 
— whether  he  will  domineer  or  plead  in  courtship — whether  he 
will  respond  toward  a  given  child  by  approval,  domineering, 
bullying,  protection,  hunting  or  fondling — could  in  every  case 
be  prophesied  from  knowledge  of  the  situation  and  of  him. 
^  Two  such  problems  may  be  taken  as  sample  tasks.  .When, 
we  may  ask,  will  mere  display  or  showing  off,  without  further 
behavior  toward  mastery,  be  the  response,  and  when  will  shy- 
ness ?  Can  we  do  better  with  these  two  problems  than  to  note 
that  display  is  characteristic  of  the  male  human  being  when 
attracted  by  a  female,  and  that  there  is  "a  certain  amount  of 
purely  instinctive  perturbation  and  restraint  due  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  we  have, become  objects  for  other  people's  eyes"  ? 
[James,  '93,  vol.  2,  p.  432.] 

Display. — Consider  what  should  happen  to  mastering  be- 
havior in  the  male  if  the  condition  of  the  one  responding,  or  of 
the  situation  to  which  he  responds,  possesses  elements  which 
inhibit  the  proud  look  and  threatening  approach.  Will  not  the 
tendency  appear  in  the  mutilated  form  of  display  alone  ?  Now, 
to  be  sexually  attracted  would,  by  arousing  another  form  of 
approach  in  the  responder,  inhibit  his  threats.  If  the  situation 
were  not  one  human  being  but  many,  it  would,  by  arousing 
readiness  to  retreat,  have  a  similar  effect.  Again,  if  the  situa- 
tion were  a  much  more  mature  person,  one  larger  and  more 
impressive,  but  by  his  encouraging  looks  not  provocative  of 
submissive  behavior,  the  tendency  toward  mastering  behavior 
would  be  retained  as  display  alone.  The  hypothesis  that  in- 
stinctive showing  off  is  what  is  left  of  mastering  behavior  when 
certain  parts  of  it  are  kept  out  seems  likely,  since  it  accounts  so 
well  for  the  three  main  sets  of  circumstances  under  which  this 
mild  form  of  self-assertion  occurs. 

Shyness. — In  the  second  problem,  we  are  required  to  find 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  95 

out  what  original  shyness  is,  as  well  as  when  it  occurs.  It 
seems  to  consist  chiefly  in  hesitancy  and  restraint  of  movement 
(most  easily  noticed  in  speech),  lowering  of  eyes,  and  averted 
face.  I  suggest,  therefore,  that  it  may  be  submissive  behavior 
minus  the  gross  bodily  cringing,  and  the  inner  acceptance  of 
subserviency,  and  that  it  occurs  as  what  is  left  of  the  response 
of  submissive  behavior  when  the  condition  of  the  person  re- 
sponding, or  of  the  situation  to  which  he  responds,  possesses 
elements  which  inhibit  these.  Thus,  where  a  powerful  and 
hostile  crowd  would  provoke  submission  in  toto,  a  mere  crowd 
or  a  fairly  friendly  crowd  provokes  shyness,  and  the  speaker 
simply  cannot  look  at  them  quite  squarely  or  speak  naturally. 
Similarly,  while  a  sufficiently  domineering  mistress  may  pro- 
voke submission  in  toto,  the  ordinary  nice  girl  makes  her  ad- 
mirers simply  shy.  Similarly,  the  adult  whose  behavior,  if 
fully  masterful,  would  provoke  submission  in  toto,  by  omitting 
certain  features  of  his  mastering  behavior  reduces  its  effect  upon 
others  to  shyness. 

Instead  of  the  various  forms  of  original  tendencies  which 
have  been  here  described  under  mastery,  submission,  responses 
to  admiration  and  responses  to  scorn,  McDougall  would  assume 
two  tendencies,  "The  instincts  of  self-abasement  (or  subjection) 
and  of  self  assertion  (or  self-display)"  ['08,  p.  62].  He 
says : — 

"The  instinct  of  self-display  is  manifested  by  many  of  the 
higher  social  or  gregarious  animals,  especially  perhaps,  though 
not  only,  at  the  time  of  mating.  Perhaps  among  mammals  the 
horse  displays  it  most  clearly.  The  muscles  of  all  parts  are 
strongly  innervated,  the  creature  holds  himself  erect,  his  neck 
is  arched,  his  tail  lifted,  his  motions  become  superfluously  vigor- 
ous and  extensive,  he  lifts  his  hoofs  high  in  air,  as  he  parades 
before  the  eyes  of  his  fellows.  .  .  .  The  instinct  is  essentially 
a  social  one,  and  is  only  brought  into  play  by  the  presence  of 
spectators.  Such  self-display  is  popularly  recognized  as  imply- 
ing pride;  we  say  "How  proud  he  looks!"  ...  It  is  this 
primary  emotion  which  may  be  called  positive  self-feeling  or 
elation,  and  which  might  well  be  called  pride,  if  that  word 
were  not  required  to  denote  the  sentiment  of  pride.     In  the 


96  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

simpie  form  in  which  it  is  expressed  by  the  self-display  of 
animals,  it  does  not  necessarily  imply  self-consciousness. 

Many  children  clearly  exhibit  this  instinct  of  self-display; 
before  they  can  walk  or  talk  the  impulse  finds  its  satisfaction  in 
the  admiring  gaze  and  plaudits  of  the  family  circle  as  each  new 
acquirement  is  practised;  a  little  later  it  is  still  more  clearly 
expressed  by  the  frequently  repeated  command,  **See  me  do 
this,"  or  "See  how  well  I  can  do  so-and-so" ;  and  for  many  a 
child  half  the  delight  of  riding  on  a  pony,  or  of  wearing  a  new 
coat,  consists  in  the  satisfaction  of  this  instinct,  and  vanishes 
if  there  be  no  spectators.  A  little  later,  with  the  growth  of 
self-consciousness  the  instinct  may  find  expression  in  the  boast- 
ing and  swaggering  of  boys,  the  vanity  of  girls 

The  situation  that  more  particularly  excites  this  instinct  is 
the  presence  of  spectators  to  whom  one  feels  oneself  for  any 
reason,  or  in  any  way,  superior,  and  this  is  perhaps  true  in  a 
modified  sense  of  the  animals.  .  .  . 

As  regards  the  emotion  of  subjection  or  negative  self-feel- 
ing, we  have  the  same  grounds  for  regarding  it  as  a  primary 
emotion  that  accompanies  the  excitement  of  an  instinctive 
disposition.  The  impulse  of  this  instinct  expresses  itself  in  a 
slinking,  crestfallen  behaviour,  a  general  diminution  of  muscu- 
lar tone,  slow  restricted  movements,  a  hanging  down  of  the 
head,  and  sidelong  glances.  .  .  . 

In  children  the  expression  of  this  emotion  is  often  mistaken 
for  that  of  fear;  but  the  young  child  sitting  on  his  mother's 
lap  in  perfect  silence  and  with  face  averted,  casting  sidelong 
glances  at  a  stranger,  presents  a  picture  very  different  from 
that  of  fear."     ['08,  pp.  62-65,  po^sim.] 

These  tendencies,  if  taken  as  named,  are  too  vague  to  be  of 
much  help  in  prophesying  human  behavior,  while  the  detailed 
descriptions  of  them  seem  to  me  to  fail  to  tell  what  makes  us 
abashed  and  assertive.  I  quote  them  so  that  the  reader  may 
have  a  stimulus  toward  criticism  of  the  view  which  I  have  been 
defending.* 

♦See  also,  for  a  general  description  of  certain  aspects  of  the  behavior 
in  question,  complicated  by  training,  Showing  off  and  Bashfulness  as 
Forms  of  Self-Consciousness,  by  G.  S.  Hall  and  T.  L.  Smith  ['03],  in 
the  Ped.  Sem.  Vol.  10,  pp.  159-199. 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  97 

'Self  Conscious'  Behavior. — The  alternations  of  shy  and 
assertive  behavior  shown  by  little  children  toward  visitors,  by 
young  people  toward  the  opposite  sex,  and  by  all  of  us  upon 
occasions,  are  at  times  due  to  a  balancing  of  the  responses  in 
the  case  of  one  same  situation  which  arouses  neither  especially, 
now  one  and  now  the  other  set  of  responses  being  made  accord- 
ing to  minor  variations  in  the  responder.  They  are  at  times 
due,  I  think,  to  actual  changes  back  and  forth  in  the  behavior 
of  the  person  who  is  the  situation. 

There  may  well  be  in  addition  special  tendencies  to  respond 
to  a  human  being  who  gives  one  no  notice  by  various  forms  of 
aggressive  and  coy  display.  I  am  unable  to  decide  whether  the 
lessons  of  experience  that  various  antics,  showing  one's  posses- 
sions, nestling  up  to  or  tugging  at  the  person  in  question  and 
the  like  get  attention  to  oneself  are  or  are  not  adequate  to  ex- 
plain the  features  of  'showing  off'  and  'attracting  notice'  which 
are  left  over  after  curiosity,  attention-getting,  'mutilated  mas- 
tery,' sex-behavior  and  general  sociability  have  been  reckoned 
with. 

Galton  ['83,  pp.  47-57]  describes  somewhat  vaguely  certain 
tendencies,  which  he  calls  'slavish  instincts,'  'incapacity  of 
relying  on  oneself  and  a  faith  in  others,'  and  the  like,  and  which 
he  thinks  'have  been  ingrained  into  our  breed'  and  'are  a  bar 
to  our  enjoying  the  freedom  which  the  forms  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion are  otherwise  capable  of  giving  us.'  If  I  understood  the 
facts  which  he  has  in  mind,  they  seem  to  be  certain  aspects  and 
results  of  the  tendencies  which  have  already  been  listed  here 
under  gregariousness,  approval  and  submission,  when  com- 
bined with  a  relative  lack  of  originality  and  of  power  in  abstract 
thought. 

OTHER  SOCIAL  INSTINCTS 

Sex  Behavior. — To  disentangle  what  is  original  in  sex  pas- 
sion and  the  manifold  activities  of  courtship  and  love  from 
what  is  learned  as  custom,  or  produced  by  cross  influences  from 
other  social  habits,  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  any  complete 
7 


98  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

theory  of  education.  But  the  task  demands  a  volume  of  its 
own  in  which  the  facts  of  mental  pathology  and  of  the  sex  life 
of  many  races  as  well  as  those  hidden  by  modern  taboos  can  be 
presented  with  the  frankness  which  so  important  a  subject 
deserves.  The  reader  is  referred  to  A.  Forel's  The  Sexual 
Question  and  A.  Moll's  The  Sexual  Life  of  the  Child  as  per- 
haps the  most  useful  books  in  English. 

The  main  chain  of  situations  and  responses  originally  in- 
volved is  as  follows :  To  the  situation,  *a  certain  period  of  life 
and,  in  the  male,  a  certain  interval  since  the  last  discharge  of 
spermatozoa,'  the  response  is  a  restlessness  and  attentiveness  to 
human  beings  of  the  opposite  sex  who  do  not  arouse  inhibiting 
responses  of  disgust.  To  man  in  this  situation  the  presence  of 
a  not  too  young  or  old  person  of  the  opposite  sex  arouses  the 
responses  of  display,  aggressive  in  the  male,  coy  in  the  female. 
To  the  total  situations  resulting,  the  female  responds  by  coy 
advances  and  retreats;  the  male,  by  caressing  pursuit  and 
capture.  The  former  is  satisfied  by,  and  so  instinctively 
maintains,  whatever  augments  the  aggressiveness  of  the  male; 
he  responds  similarly  to  the  hopeful  difficulties  which  her  be- 
havior offers.  Capture  and  submission  are  responded  to  by 
mutual  absence  of  fear,  disdain  and  the  like, — ^the  instinctive 
basis  of  the  perfect  confidence  celebrated  by  poets, — and  by  sat- 
isfaction in  bodily  contact,  including  as  a  final  element  the  con- 
tact necessary  to  the  fertilization  of  the  ovum.  The  entire 
behavior  in  original  nature  is  neither  licentious  nor  ideal,  being 
destitute  of  images  or  notions  of  any  sort. 

Secretiveness. — Secretiveness  and  confession,  both  popular 
in  civilized  mankind,  seem  to  be  so  often  inexplicable  by  train- 
ing that  original  tendencies  to  act  in  secret  in  some  cases,  and 
to  get  attention  to  one's  self  at  all  costs  in  others,  may  be  sus- 
pected. But  they  are  perhaps  simply  varieties  of  shyness  and 
display.  Secretiveness  in  the  sense  of  a  proclivity  to  conduct 
love  affairs  in  isolation  and  in  the  dark  is  a  special  tendency 
that  does  seem  to  be  unlearned. 

Rivalry. — No  one  can  doubt  that  the  facts  vaguely  referred 


THE  SOCIAL  INSTINCTS  99 

to  by  Emulation  or  Rivalry  have  some  basis  in  man's  inborn 
organization ;  but,  as  with  maternal  affection,  pugnacity  or  the 
hunting  instinct,  it  is  necessary  to  define  the  tendencies  and 
separate  out  those  elements  of  them  which  are  original  from 
those  into  which  they  g^ow  in  the  course  of  man's  social 
training. 

The  two  essential  facts  in  rivalry  are:  the  increased  vigor 
in  man's  activity  when  other  men  are  engaged  in  the  same 
activity  and  the  satisfyingness  of  superiority  to  them.  It  may 
be  that  in  the  course  of  life  any  sort  of  fellow-working  or 
playing  becomes  a  stimulus,  and  any  sort  of  superiority  a  satis- 
fier.  But  original  nature  has  no  such  desire  for  abstract  super- 
iority, and  its  responses  to  fellow-working  and  playing  are 
limited  to  the  work  and  play  which  one's  fellows  instinctively 
pursue.  Original  emulation  or  rivalry  is,  in  the  first  place,  a 
group  of  tendencies  to  respond  more  vigorously  in  trying  to  get 
some  one's  attention  upon  perceiving  a  fellow  creature's  at- 
tempts to  get  it,  in  chasing  some  animal  upon  perceiving  a 
fellow  creature  chasing  it,  in  pulling  toward  one's  self  a  thing 
when  a  fellow  creature  is  pulling  it  toward  himself,  in  running 
toward  an  object  toward  which  he  runs,  and  the  like.  In  the 
second  place,  it  is  the  responses  of  annoyance  at  being  deprived 
of  some  one's  attention  by  another,  of  satisfaction  at  getting 
some  one's  attention  in  spite  of  another,  of  annoyance  at  being 
outdone  in  the  chase,  the  seizure  or  the  struggle,  of  satisfaction 
in  getting  the  prey,  retaining  the  toy  or  being  on  top  in  spite 
of  competitors,  and  the  like. 

It  is  upon  such  special  stimulations  and  satisfactions  rather 
than  upon  a  diffuse  imitativeness  and  craving  for  superiority 
that  education  at  the  start  has  to  rely.  As  Dr.  Ordahl,  who 
has  given  the  best  single  account  of  the  facts  of  animal  and 
human  rivalry,  says  :  "That  it  has  become  an  instinctive  response 
to  all  situations  involving  a  possible  chance  of  surpassing 
another,  we  have,  I  think,  much  evidence  to  show  improbable. 
It  is  an  instinctive  response  only  when  the  situation  involves 
the  natural  tendencies  of  the  animal."     ['08,  p.  506.] 


lOO  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

Quantitative  estimates  of  the  effect  of  rivalry  are  much 
needed.  Triplett  ['98]  noted  that  the  records  for  bicycle  rid- 
ing made  in  competition  averaged  four  and  a  half  per  cent  (he 
gives  this  as  three  and  a  half  by  reason  of  an  arithmetical  error) 
faster  than  the  same  records  made  against  time.  He  also  tested 
forty  children,  mostly  ten,  eleven  and  twelve  years  old,  in  turn- 
ing a  wheel,  whereby  a  seen  flag  circled  a  track,  with  and  with- 
out artificially  arranged  competition.  In  general  the  rate  with 
human  competition  was  two  per  cent  faster.  Triplett  thinks 
that  this  slight  superiority  is  a  composite  of  a  greater  super- 
iority for  some  and  an  inferiority  for  others  who  became 
'nervous'  and  so  'went  to  pieces'  under  the  excitement  of 
competition.  Triplett  did  not,  however,  attempt  to  assign  any 
defined  share  of  this  effect  to  original  rivalry  as  distinct  from 
acquired  habits. 

In  the  lower  animals  emulation  is  notably  utilitarian*  The 
victor  gets  the  spoils.  Dr.  Ordahl  notes  that  the  young  bird 
that  calls  oftenest  and  loudest  does  get  the  most  food ;  that  in 
cattle  rivalry  is  chiefly  over  food  and  mates;  that  horses  do 
not  race  in  play;  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  teach  dogs  to 
race.  This  utilitarian  quality  holds  true  of  original  human 
rivalry  to  a  greater  degree  than  is  generally  thought  to  be  the 
case.  The  presence  of  a  competitor  commonly  does  make  it 
pay  to  put  forth  extra  effort.  In  a  society  living  by  its  instincts, 
the  presence  of  a  competitor  would  commonly  make  it  pay  to 
put  forth  extra  effort,  and  to  win  would  commonly  be  to  win 
some  thing. 

Cooperation. — It  is  probable  that  certain  modifications  in 
the  hunting  responses  occur  when  they  are  made  in  the  com- 
pany of  other  men  hunting  the  same  thing;  but  what  they  are 
cannot  be  stated.  So  also  one  attacked  when  in  the  company 
of  other  men  behaves  otherwise  than  he  would  if  alone;  but, 
aside  from  the  facts  elsewhere  noted  and  a  tendency,  under 
conditions  which  are  not  clearly  made  out,  to  huddle  together 
instead  of  scattering,  I  cannot  say  what  the  cooperative  be- 
havior is. 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  lOT 

'Suggestibility  and  Opposition. — Suggestibility  seems  to 
mean  the  tendency  to  believe  without  proof  and  to  act  without 
sufficient  reason.  Man  obviously  does  not  have  to  learn  sug- 
gestibility in  this  sense.  Indeed  he  spends  much  of  his  life  in 
getting  rid  of  it.  But  such  behavior  is  a  secondary  conse- 
quence of  tendencies  already  described  or  to  be  described,  not 
a  new  set  of  bonds,  requiring  a  separate  place  in  our  list.  The 
same  holds  good,  I  think,  of  the  instinctive  basis  of  the  ten- 
dencies to  self-assertion  which  Royce  emphasizes  in  the  follow- 
ing words:  "Side  by  side  with  the  social  processes  of  the 
imitative  type  appear  another  gfroup  of  reactions  practically 
inseparable  from  the  former,  but  in  character  decidedly  con- 
trasted with  them.  These  are  the  phenomena  of  Social  Oppo- 
sition and  of  the  love  for  contrasting  one's  self  with  one's  fel- 
lows in  behavior,  in  opinion,  or  in  power.  These  phenomena 
of  social  contrast  and  opposition  have  an  unquestionably  instinc- 
tive basis."     ['03,  p.  277.] 

Envious  and  Jealous  Behavior. — It  is  an  original  tendency 
of  man  to  be  annoyed  by  the  perception  of  another*  receiving 
certain  attention  and  treatment  which  his  own  behavior  would 
otherwise  get  for  himself.  Young  children  are  thus  intolerant 
of  the  fondling  of  others  by  their  mother ;  lovers,  of  the  atten- 
tiveness  of  their  mates  to  others ;  mothers,  of  the  affection  and 
notice  given  by  their  children  to  others.  There  seems,  how- 
ever, to  be  no  uniform  behavior  characteristic  of  these  jealous 
discomforts.  Attacks  on  the  competing  object,  seizure  and 
holding  of  the  person  whose  attitude  toward  one  is  being  made 
inadequate,  general  raging,  sulking,  pining,  grief  and  other 
activities  are  manifested.  The  original  basis  of  envy  seems  to 
be  simply  discomfort  at  seeing  others  approved,  and  at  being 
outdone  by  them. 

Anyone  with  a  special  interest  in  the  natural  history  of 
jealousy  and  envious  behavior  will  find  in  Dr.  A.  L.  Gesell's 
Jealousy  [A.  J.  P.,  vol.  17,  pp.  437-496]  an  account  of  the 

♦The  'other*  may  be  a  thing  or  an  event  as  well  as  a  person. 


I02  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

many  acts  and  expressions  which  are  commonly  referred  to  by 
jealousy  and  envy.  From  this  material  the  student  can  him- 
self decide  what  their  roots  in  original  nature  are. 

Greed. — The  elements  out  of  which  what  is  original  in 
greed  is  composed  have  been  listed  elsewhere.  To  go  for  attrac- 
tive objects,  to  grab  them  when  within  reach,  to  hold  them 
against  competitors,  to  fight  the  one  who  tries  to  take  them 
away,  to  go  for,  grab  and  hold  them  all  the  more  if  another  is 
trying  to  do  so — these  lines  of  conduct  are  the  roots  of  greed. 
The  word  is,  in  common  use,  restricted  to  those  manifestations 
in  which  what  we  consider  a  normal  balance  between  these 
tendencies  and  more  generous  ones  is  exceeded. 

Ownership. — By  the  instinct  of  ownership  may  be  meant 
either  original  tendencies  to  resist  the  abstraction  from  one's 
person  or  immediate  neighborhood  of  an  object  which  one  is 
using  or  has  recently  (within  a  few  minutes)  acquired,  or 
original  tendencies  to  be  satisfied  by  having  on  one's  person 
or  within  the  range  of  one's  senses  many  objects  with  which  no 
one  interferes.  The  former  have  already  been  listed  under  the 
instinct  of  possession ;  the  latter  are  more  doubtful.  The  very 
common  enjoyment  of  owning,  that  is,  having  complete  power 
over,  things  rather  than  merely  using  them  subject  to  possi- 
bilities of  interference  or  despoil iation,  no  matter  how  remote, 
is  the  outgrowth  of  training  cooperating  with  one  or  both  of 
these  tendencies. 

Kindliness."^ — The  situation,  *a  living  thing  displaying 
hungry,  frightened  or  pained  behavior  by  wailing,  clinging, 

*I  use  the  word  kindliness  for  parts  of  the  tendency  which  James  calls 
sympathy,  including  other  parts  under  mothering  behavior.  The  word 
sympathy  has  been  used  for  very  different  traits  in  the  service  of  quarrels 
about  ethical  theories  and  may  well  be  avoided,  even  when,  as  here, 
the  behavior  named  by  it  is  stated  objectively.  It  has  meant  benevolent 
feelings,  such  as  mothers  have  toward  their  children ;  annoyance  at  the 
signs  of  suffering,  such  as  a  hard-hearted  boarder  might  feel  at  a  child's 
wailing  or  a  sick  man's  groans;  and  the  duplication,  in  an  observer,  of 
any  instinotive  behavior — fear,  anger,  elation  and  the  like — which  he 
witnesses.  This  last  variety  will  be  treated  in  this  inventory  under 
Imitatioyi. 


THE  SOCIAL  INSTINCTS  IO3 

holding  out  its  arms  and  the  like,'  provokes  attention  and  dis- 
comfort and  may,  if  attendant  circumstances  do  not  shunt  be- 
havior over  to  the  hunting,  avoiding  or  triumphing  responses, 
provoke  acts  of  relief.  Whether  this  last  issue  is  a  conse- 
quence of  the  original  bonds  described  under  the  instinct  of 
motherly  behavior  or  is  a  somewhat  independent  and  differently 
specialized  kindliness,  is  of  little  importance  for  our  purpose. 
The  former  is  the  likelier,  but  some  odd  facts  suggest  that 
specialized  tendencies  to  share  food  and  social  protection  with 
the  suffering  may  have  arisen  as  inborn  qualities  of  the  natures 
of  certain  social  animals.  The  commonest  bodily  conditions 
due  to  pity,  as  reported  by  Saunders  and  Hall  ['00],  are  loss 
of  appetite  and  inability  to  sleep!  The  irrational  impulse  to 
get  the  sick  to  eat  seems  to  prevail  the  world  over ;  and  watch- 
ing over  them  is  often  a  custom  justified  now  more  by  its  satis- 
faction of  the  impulses  in  the  watcher  than  by  its  value  to  the 
watched.  In  man's  life,  for  the  first  nine-tenths  of  his  history, 
a  tendency  to  feed  and  watch  by  those  who  were  sick,  wounded 
and  afflicted  with  sores  would  have  perhaps  been  a  form  of 
mutual  aid  advantageous  to  the  group's  survival  and  one  that 
could  conceivably  have  originated  as  a  variation  from  motherly 
behavior. 

Another  aspect  of  original  kindliness  is  the  positive  satis- 
fyingness  of  witnessing  behavior  characteristic  of  welfare  in 
our  fellows.  Even  the  mean  and  brutal  man  naturally  likes, 
apart  from  periods  of  rage  and  hunting,  to  see  people  happy. 
The  happy  behavior  of  others  is  pleasant,  as  flowers,  sunshine 
and  food  are.  It  provokes,  if  competing  responses  are  not  too 
strong,  kindly  behavior  in  the  shape  of  welcome,  smiles, 
laughter,  and  the  sharing  of  food.  This  kindly  behavior  is 
not  necessarily  confined  to  human  beings;  the  child  may  offer 
a  part  of  his  cooky  to  a  toy,  or  caress  a  flower.  As  Cooley 
says,  "it  flows  out  upon  all  the  pleasantness  the  child  finds 
about  him."  ['02,  p.  47.]  In  an  ordinary  environment,  how- 
ever, people  are  its  main  stimuli  and  recipients. 

Teasing,  Tormenting  and  Bullying. — Teasing,  tormenting 


I04  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

and  bullying  are  the  most  notable  inborn  exceptions  to  childish 
kindliness.  They  are  due,  I  judge,  to  the  competing  tendencies 
to  manipulation  and  curiosity,  hunting,  scorn  and  mastery. 
Manipulation  and  curiosity  easily  develop  into  teasing.  A  child 
tends  to  do  all  sorts  of  things  to  people  as  well  as  to  things,  and 
is  restless  at  the  quiescence  of  a  person  as  he  is  at  that  of  any 
object.  If  the  person  who  is  pulled,  poked,  hit,  called  to,  run 
after  or  jumped  upon  plays  back,  the  natural  course  of  develop- 
ment is  toward  what  is  called  play.  If  the  person  reacts  by 
energetic  and  victorious  angry  behavior,  the  child  abandons  its 
manipulation  and  pleased  interest  in  what  the  person  will  do 
in  favor  of  fighting,  flight  or  submissive  appeal.  If  the  person 
neither  plays  back  nor  punishes,  but  behaves  in  a  vexed,  sullen, 
frightened  or  insufficiently  punitive  angry  way,  the  child  will, 
according  to  its  total  make-up  and  the  temporary  set  of  its 
mind,  abandon,  continue  or  increase  his  curious  manipulation  of 
the  person,  and  the  observer  will  call  his  behavior  teasing  or 
tormenting.  Teasing  those  who  are  unable  or  unwilling  to 
revenge  themselves  then  inevitably  becomes  a  habit  in  the  case 
of  children  of  mean  and  brutal  natures. 

When  the  hunting  responses  are  called  forth  by  a  human 
being,  they  (alone  or  in  combination  with  attempted  mastery) 
produce  a  special  form  of  play  typically  characterized,  as  Burk 
has  shown,  by  "pursuing,  throwing  down,  holding  down,  put- 
ting knee  on  vanquished  victim,  pinching,  pulling  hair,  pulling 
ears,  striking,  shaking,  throwing  missiles,  dancing  about  con- 
quered victim,  laughing,  clapping  hands,  .  .  .  smiling,  a  tri- 
umphant air."  ['07,  p.  228.]  In  the  course  of  training, 
threats  may  to  any  extent  replace  the  actual  treatment  of  the 
person  as  prey  or  slave.  Many  degrees  of  intermixture  of  the 
responses  provided  to  an  animal  to  be  caught,  torn  to  pieces 
and  eaten,  and  of  those  provided  to  an  antagonist  before  and 
after  he  gives  instinctive  tokens  of  submission,  are  found. 
Obviously  such  cruelty  and  bullying  can  occur  only  when  the 
one  who  arouses  the  hunting  and  mastering  responses  is  unwill- 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  I05 

ing  or  unable  to  protect  himself.     Such  a  one  also  probably 
specially  arouses  them.* 

The  history  of  slave-driving,  hazing,  persecution,  and  the 
almost  universal  inequitable  use  of  delegated  powers  by  gov- 
ernors, generals,  popes,  school-masters  and  all  those  in  authority, 
warrants  the  conviction  that  the  hunting  response  does  not 
originally  distinguish  man  from  other  animals  at  all  surely,  and 
that  submissive  behavior  does  not  as  uniformly  bring  release 
from  aggression  in  man  as  it  does  in  the  mammals  in  general. 
Motherly  behavior  and  the  other  instinctive  forms  of  kindliness 
are  very  inadequate  protections  against  the  inborn  impulses  to 
cruelty.  In  children  of  mean  and  brutal  nature,  bullying  is 
therefore  almost  sure  to  occur  unless  it  is  deliberately  stamped 
out  by  education. 

Man's  inhumanity  to  man  is  so  common,  and  his  early  his- 
tory has  been  pictured  as  a  so  unmitigated  strife,  that  my 
account  of  original  kindness  and  cruelty  has  doubtless  seemed 
too  mild.  Popular  evolutionary  psychology  has  emphasized 
the  selfish  and  blood-thirsty  aggressiveness  of  our  early  ances- 
tors and  the  triumphs  of  civilization  in  holding  the  wild  beast 
within  us  in  check  by  the  traditions  of  justice  and  mercy  which 
each  generation  is  forced  to  accept  and  which  they  somewhat 
mysteriously  improve.  All  this  is,  in  a  rough  way,  true;  but 
popular  psychology  has  failed  to  make  clear — and,  even  to 
realize  fully — that  civilization  does  not  so  much  create  kindness 
and  repress  cruelty  as  merely  redirect  them.  It  has  also  quite 
mistaken  the  facts  in  fancying  that  the  primitive  male  was  a 
roving  man-slayer  and  that  the  primitive  woman's  hand  was 
against  every  creature  save  the  child  at  her  breast.  The  anthro- 
polog^'sts  who  have  made  this  a  matter  of  study  would,  on 
the  contrary,  be  fairly  represented  by  the  following  quotation : 
"In  short  there  is  found  in  the  humblest  tribe  of  savages 

•When  they  arc  aroused  by  others,  whose  retaliation  makes  the  out- 
come mutual  rough  play,  wars  of  words,  or  the  subjection  of  the 
original  aggressor,  the  resulting  behavior  is,  by  custom,  not  called  teasing 
or   bullying. 


I06  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

no  small  share  of  the  capacity  to  bear  and  forbear,  no  slight 
measure  of  warm  affection  and  of  a  natural  humanity.  The 
dance  and  the  chant,  the  merry  game  and  the  funeral  wail, 
their  wedding  festivities,  and  their  care  of  the  sick  and  the 
infirm,  even  though  it  tires  at  last  in  the  case  of  the  very  aged 
or  of  the  chronic  invalid,  the  festive  ceremonies  of  naming  and 
initiation,  the  devotion  shown  by  each  to  the  other  in  battle, 
and  the  general  cohesiveness  of  life  from  year  to  year  mark  in 
the  poorest  savages  an  advance,  solid  though  not  phenomenal, 
above  the  highest  social  life  of  the  lower  animals.  The  more 
closely  we  study  the  earlier  stages  of  human  development,  the 
more  will  we  be  inclined  to  agree  with  the  eloquent  summary 
of  Tylor  (Anthropology,  p.  402)  :  "Mankind  can  never  have 
lived  as  a  mere  struggling  crowd,  each  for  himself.  Society 
is  always  made  up  of  families  bound  together  by  kindly  ties. 
Their  habits,  judged  by  our  notions,  are  hard  and  coarse,  yet 
the  family  tie  of  sympathy  and  common  interest  is  already 
formed,  and  the  foundation  of  moral  duty  already  laid  in  the 
mother's  patient  tenderness,  the  father's  desperate  valour  in 
defence  of  home,  their  daily  care  for  the  little  ones,  the  affec- 
tion of  brothers  and  sisters,  and  the  mutual  forbearance,  hope- 
fulness, and  trust  of  all."*  [Sutherland,  '98,  vol.  i,  p.  351  f.] 
There  are  other  original  responses  to  the  behavior  of  human 
beings — for  example,  sulkiness,  grieving,  the  horse-play  of 
youths,  the  cooing  and  gurgling  of  infants,  and  their  satisfac- 
tion at  being  held,  cuddled,  and  carried.  There  are  also  other 
situations  offered  by  human  nature  to  which  original  tendencies 
are  bound.  I  cannot  but  believe  that  certain  emphatic  signs  of 
youth  and  of  old  age,  of  health  and  of  disease,  of  frankness  and 
of  deceit,  of  aggressiveness  and  of  fear,  and  of  many  other  con- 
ditions, all  possess  original  potency  to  make  a  difference  in  the 
behavior  of  men  toward  the  person  in  question.  It  would  in- 
deed not  be  very  far  wrong  to  assume  that  every  feature  of 
instinctive  behavior  in  any  one  human  being  produced  some 
instinctive  response  in  those  witnessing  it. 

*For  an  elaborate  and  admirable  study  of  early  helpfulness  and  its 
probable  original  roots,  the  reader  should  consult  Kropotkin's  Mutual  Aid: 
a  Factor  of  Evolution,  '02.  This  author  is  perhaps  over-enthusiastic  and 
ready  to  find  what  he  seeks,  but  his  book  is  an  appropriate  antidote  to 
the  popular  misconception  of  moral  evolution. 


THE  SOCIAL   INSTINCTS  IO7 

All  these  tendencies  must,  however,  pass  without  further 
description  here,  partly  that  room  may  be  left  for  more  im- 
portant matters,  but  chiefly  because  I  am  unable  to  tell  with 
any  surety  what  these  subtler  tendencies  are. 

Finally,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  original  tendencies 
listed  outside  of  this  chapter  often  have  the  behavior  of  other 
human  beings  as  their  provocatives.  Man  originally  makes 
no  abstract  dichotomy  of  nature  into  things  and  persons. 
Angry  and  frightened  behavior,  manipulation  and  hunting-,  for 
example,  are  fundamentals  of  social  life  as  well  as  of  adaptation 
to  the  rest  of  nature. 


chapter  viii 

Responses  to  the  Behavior  of  Other  Human  Beings  : 

Imitation 

Imitation  is  a  word  of  too  many  different  meanings  to  be 
used  without  qualifications.  It  may  mean  a  tendency  to  make 
movements  similar  to  those  made  in  the  animal's  presence,  or  a 
tendency  to  produce  a  result  similar  to  a  result  produced  In  the 
animal's  presence,  or  a  tendency  to  use  the  behavior  of  other 
animals  in  any  way  as  a  model  or  guide  influencing  one's  be- 
havior toward  some  degree  of  likeness  thereto.  The  behavior 
of  other  animals  may  be  regarded  as  working  immediately, 
making  the  animal  do  the  like  In  the  same  way  that  a  loud  noise 
makes  him  jump;  or  by  arousing  an  idea  of  the  movement;  or 
by  arousing  an  idea  of  the  result  produced ;  or  by  arousing  an 
idea  that  has  by  habit  led  to  the  movement ;  or  by  arousing  ideas 
of  various  sorts  that  indirectly  make  his  behavior  more  like  the 
behavior  of  the  other  animal  than  it  would  otherwise  have  been. 
Indeed,  Imitation  Is  used  by  Tarde  and  other  sociological  writ- 
ers, to  mean  little  more  than  the  repetition,  for  any  reason,  of 
Ideas  and  acts  and  feelings  like  those  which  other  men  have  or 
have  had. 

Even  writers  who  are  in  general  careful  to  define  the  facts 
which  they  assume  or  assert,  commonly  use  the  term  Imitation 
very  loosely.  For  example  It  Is  impossible  to  tell  whether 
Royce,  In  the  following  quotation,  should  be  ranked  as  favoring 
the  first,  the  second,  the  third,  the  fourth,  or  none,  of  the 
above: — "On  the  basis  of  the  general  social  interests,  there 
appear  more  special  Instincts,  amongst  which  the  most  prom- 
inent Is  the  complex  of  instincts  suggested  by  the  name  Imita- 
tion.    It  Is  by  imitation  that  the  child  learns  its  language.     It 

iq8 


IMITATION  109 

is  by  imitation  that  it  acquires  all  the  social  tendencies  that 
make  it  a  tolerable  member  of  society."     ['03,  p.  276.] 

It  is  better,  therefore,  instead  of  asking  vaguely  whether 
imitation  of  other  men  is  an  original  tendency  in  man,  to  put 
separately  the  following  questions  : — 

Ai.  Do  the  sense-presentations  (chiefly  through  sight)  of 
all  movements  as  made  by  another  produce  in  man,  apart  from 
all  training,  identical  movements? 

A2.     Similar  movements? 

A3.     Tendencies  to  make  similar  movements? 

A4.  If  some,  but  not  all  movements,  have  this  power, 
which  are  they  ? 

Bi.  Do  the  sense-presentations  of  all  positions  of  the  body 
taken  by  another,  all  sounds  made,  all  facial  expressions  as- 
sumed and  other  results  of  movement  upon  the  mover's  body, 
produce  in  man,  apart  from  all  training,  movements  resulting 
in  identical  positions,  sounds  and  looks? 

B2.     Similar  ones  ? 

B3.  Tendencies  to  make  movements  resulting  in  identical 
or  similar  ones  ? 

B4.  If  some  but  not  all  positions,  sounds,  looks,  and  the 
like  have  this  power,  which  are  they  ? 

GENERAL    IMITATIVENESS 

In  spite  of  the  frequency  of  statements  that  the  child  makes 
every  gesture  that  he  sees  and  every  sound  that  he  hears,*  no 

♦Such  as: — 

"The  child  toward  the  end  of  the  first  year,  often  reproduces  nearly 
every  sound  he  hears.  Sometimes  this  is  done  almost  automatically 
and  with  photographic  exactness."     (Kirkpatrick,  '03,  p.  228.] 

"When  a  child  sees  an  interesting  movement  or  hears  an  interesting 
sound,  he  has  not  only  a  tendency  to  move  all  his  muscles,  but  a  stronger 
special  tendency  to  move  the  muscles  necessary  to  reproduce  the  per- 
ceived movement  or  sound.     (Ibid.,  p.  83.] 

"Imitation  usually  makes  rapid  strides  in  this  period  (second  half 
year).  In  one  case  gestures  were  imitated  at  eight  months,  and  words 
at    nine.     .     .     .     Sigismund   observed   the   instinct   of   imitation    showing 


no  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

one  who  has  tried  to  teach  infants  to  talk,  or  five-year-olds  to 
write  and  sing,  will  for  a  moment  believe  that  behavior  wit- 
nessed produces  identical  behavior  by  any  original  potency. 
Writers  who  have  seemed  to  say  so  cannot,  if  possessed  of  any 
sense  for  fact,  have  meant  what  they  said.  Questions  Ai  and 
Bi  can  be  dismissed  each  with  a  flat  NO.  At  the  most  a  gen- 
eral tendency  to  imitate  can  only  be  as  in  A2  and  B2  a  tendency 
to  make  movements,  or  get  results,  that  are  somewhat  like 
whatever  ones  are  witnessed. 

I  can  find  no  evidence  that  any  such  tendency  is  original  in 
man.  As  will  be  stated  later,  certain  particular  sorts  of  be- 
havior do  originally  provoke  in  the  spectator  behavior  that 
resembles  them,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  behavior  in  general 
does  not.  Consider  the  difficulty  of  getting  an  infant  to  even 
approximately  'wave  a  bye-bye,'  *pat-a-cake,'  'blow  a  kiss,'  or 
'spit  it  out;'  and  the  extreme  difficulty  of  getting  him  to  blow 
his  nose,  clear  his  throat,  or  gargle.  Sit  before  him  and  per- 
form time  after  time  a  score  of  such  novel  but  simple  acts  as 
putting  your  right  hand  on  your  head  and  your  left  on  your 
right  shoulder.  He  does  not  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  do  any- 
thing more  like  the  act  you  perform  than  like  any  other  one 
of  the  twenty. 

Of  course,  after  he  has  performed  many  acts  as  sequents  to 

itself  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  first  year."  [Tracy,  '93,  second  edition, 
p.  129] 

"In  man  we  have  an  imitative  tendency  of  a  somewhat  diflferent  type. 
He  is  so  sensitive  to  what  companions  do  that  he  not  only  does  what  they 
do  when  the  actions  are  of  the  usual  type,  but  he  is  so  affected  by  move- 
ments which  he  perceives  that  he  reproduces  them,  although  they  are 
entirely  new."     [Kirkpatrick,  '09,  p.  124.] 

"Young  animals,  even  some  not  gregarious,  have  an  irresistible  impulse 
to  imitate  any  action  of  their  parents,  toward  which  their  instinctive 
impulse  is  very  weak,  and  they  learn  in  this  way  what  would  never  be 
developed  in  them  individually  without  this  imitative  impulse."  [Gross, 
'95,  Eng.  trans,  of  '98,  p.   79-] 

"This  spontaneous  imitation  does  not  necessarily  involve  ideas.  The 
mere  perception  of  your  beating  the  table  with  your  hands  or  shaking 
your  head  is  enough  to  prompt  the  child  of  about  twelve  months  to  beat 
the  table  with  his  own  hands  or  shake  his  own  head."     [Stout,  '03,  p.  81.] 


IMITATION  III 

many  situations,  the  latter  including-  often  the  perception  or 
idea  of  the  act,  you  may  frequently,  by  performing  an  act,  get 
him  to  perform  it  also.  But  his  act  is  then  a  result  of  learning, 
not  of  instinct ;  and  your  behavior  provokes  it  in  the  same  way 
that  a  verbal  suggestion  might.  The  course  of  human  educa- 
tion is  such  that  among  the  situations  to  which  acts  are  bound 
as  sequents,  ideas  of  the  acts  are  frequent.  A  human  being's 
behavior  thus  often  provokes  similar  behavior  in  another  by 
provoking  an  idea  to  which  it  is,  by  past  learning,  a  sequent. 
Such  influence  of  one  person  upon  another  illustrates,  however, 
the  laws  of  habit,  and  nothing  more. 

The  direct  potency  of  behavior  in  creating  something  like 
it  in  another  human  being's  behavior  is  not  discoverable  in  any 
series  of  experiments  in  which  the  effects  of  the  laws  of 
exercise  and  effect*  are  precluded  or  allowed  for.  And  the 
number  of  casual  observations  purporting  to  give  instances  of 
it  is  very,  very  small.  Leaving  for  the  moment  those  con- 
cerned with  the  production  of  sounds  we  have  a  rather  paltry 
showing.  For  example,  Preyer  tested  his  child  with  the  act  of 
protruding  the  closed  lips.  This  movement,  which  the  child 
made  customarily  as  an  expression  of  attentiveness,  Preyer 
made,  close  in  front  of  him,  from  time  to  time.  On  the  105th 
day  the  child  made  it  when  he  did.  Preyer  considered  that 
the  child  did  it  from  imitation  and  not  from  general  attentive- 
ness as  hitherto,  because  of  "the  imperfect  character  of  it  in 
comparison  with  the  perfect  pursing  of  the  lips  when  he  makes 
the  movement  of  his  own  accord  in  some  other  strain  of  the 
attention."  ['81,  Part  I,  p.  283.]  This  already  very  weak 
evidence  of  imitation  is  still  further  weakened  by  what  fol- 
lows. On  the  following  days  the  experiment  gave  negative 
results  and  "further  attempts  at  imitation  occurred  so  seldom 
and  were  so  imperfect,  notwithstanding  much  pains  on  my  part 
to  induce  them,  in  the  following  weeks,  that  I  was  in  doubt 
whether  they  might  not  be  the  result  of  accidental  coincidences." 
['81,  Part  I,  p.  283.]     Preyer  also  reports  that  "in  the  seven- 

*An  account  of  these  laws  will  be  given  in  Chapter  XII. 


112  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

teenth  week,  the  protruding  of  the  tip  of  the  tongue  between 
the  Hps  .  .  .  was  perfectly  imitated  once,  when  done  by  me 
before  the  child's  face."  ['8i,  Part  I,  p.  284.]  The  rest  of 
his  cases  seem  clearly  special  instincts  and  acquisitions,  as 
laughing  at  a  laugh,  crying  at  a  cry,  drinking  from  a  cup, 
using  a  spoon  properly,  and  the  like. 

McDougall*  reports  that  one  of  his  children  "on  several 
occasions  during  his  fourth  month  repeatedly  put  out  his 
tongue  when  the  person  whose  face  he  was  watching  made 
this  movement."  ['08,  p.  106.]  Tracy  attributes  to  such 
imitation  the  fact  that  "a  child  of  eight  and  a  half  months,  hav- 
ing seen  his  mother  poke  the  fire,  afterwards  crept  to  the 
hearth,  seized  the  poker,  thrust  it  into  the  ash-pan,  and  poked 
it  back  and  forth  with  great  glee,  chuckling  to  himself"  ['93, 
p.  104],  but  the  case  seems  to  prove  rather  too  much  and  to  be 
more  probably  explainable  as  the  result  of  the  general  activity 
of  the  child,  plus  the  direction  of  his  attention  to  the  poker 
and  fire. 

Moore  ['96,  p.  18]  assumes  that  the  act  of  the  child,  then 
38  weeks  old,  in  banging  two  spoons  together  upon  seeing  her 
mother  do  so  was  due  to  imitation.  The  chance  for  such  an 
event  to  happen  as  a  result  of  mere  manipulation  or  learning 
is  obviously  very  great. 

Dearborn  ['10,  pp.  42,  76,  loi,  117  and  197]  paid  special 
attention  to  appearances  of  imitation  but  seems  to  have  found 
only  behavior  probably  due  to  the  instinctive  gesture-and  voice- 
play  or  to  connections  formed  by  experience  irrespective  of  imi- 
tation proper,  and  set  in  action  because  the  imitatee's  act  di- 
rected attention  to  certain  objects.  His  most  plausible  case  is 
a  very  weak  one.  "231st  day.''-  Over  and  over  this  morning 
after  I  had  pounded  with  a  round  stick  or  wand  on  a  pillow, 
thus  making  a  loud  noise,  she  would  take  the  wand  and  sim- 
ilarly shake  it  against  the  pillow.  This  is  the  first  complex, 
clear,  certain  imitation  that  has  been  observed.     There  can  be 

*It  should  be  noted  that  neither  Preyer  nor  McDougall  believes  in  any 
general  direct  original  potency  of  behavior  witnessed  to  create  its  like. 


IMITATION  113 

no  doubt  about  this  case,  for  this  is  an  action  that  would  not 
be  made  accidentally.  Five  times  this  experiment  was  re- 
peated, and  each  time  successfully.  Later  in  the  day  she  would 
not  imitate  the  movement  of  shaking  the  hand  to  her."  [p.  loi  ] 
For  this  case  to  be  other  than  weak,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
have  evidence  that  the  infant  of  seven  months  did  not,  by  rea- 
son of  other  instincts  or  previous  training,  tend  to  take  an 
object  dangled  interestingly  before  her,  and  did  not  so  tend  to 
pound  with  wand-like  objects  grasped.  I  cannot,  of  course, 
deny  that  such  evidence  existed  in  the  case  of  this  child,  but 
with  three  infants  that  have  been  under  my  own  observation, 
such  behavior  would  by  no  means  have  meant  imitation.  And 
I  venture  to  assert  that  had  Dearborn  pounded  on  the  pillow 
with  one  hand,  while  dangling  the  wand  nearby,  the  infant 
would  have  been  hardly  less  likely  to  pound  the  pillow  with  the 
wand.  Further,  had  he,  after  the  first  pounding,  waved  the 
wand  horizontally  in  the  air,  the  infant  would  not  then  have  so 
waved  the  wand,  but  would  have  repeated  the  pounding. 

Cooley,  who  watched  especially  for  evidence  of  general 
instinctive  imitativeness  in  his  children,  found  none  that  could 
not  be  explained  better  as  the  result  of  general  activity  or  of 
learning.  He  notes  sagaciously  that,  in  one  of  the  most  plaus- 
ible appearances  of  imitation,  the  behavior  of  another  person 
probably  acted  simply  as  the  first  step  in  a  habit,  since  a  verbal 
request  produced  the  behavior  in  question  even  more  surely. 
**M.  had  a  trick  of  raising  her  hands  above  her  head,  which  she 
would  perform,  when  in  the  mood  for  it,  either  imitatively, 
when  someone  else  did  it,  or  in  response  to  the  words  'How  big 
is  M  ?',  but  she  responded  more  readily  in  the  second  or  non- 
imitative  way  than  in  the  other."     ['02,  edition  of  19 10,  p.  27.] 

I  believe  the  same  absence  of  evidence  of  any  general  or- 
iginal production  of  similar  l^ehavior  by  behavior  witnessed 
holds  good  for  sounds  as  well.  To  the  hyix)thesis  that  seeing 
the  movements  of  another's  mouth-parts  or  hearing  a  series  of 
sounds  in  and  of  itself  produces  similar  movements  or  sounds, 
I  find  the  following  objections : — 
8 


114  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

"First  of  all,  no  one  can  believe  that  all  of  a  child's  speech 
is  acquired  by  direct  imitation.  On  many  occasions  the  process 
is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  production  of  many  sounds,  irrespec- 
tive of  the  model  given,  and  the  selection  of  the  best  one  by 
parental  reward.  Any  student  who' will  try  to  get  a  child  who 
is  just  beginning  to  speak,  to  say  cat,  dog  and  mouse  and  will 
record  the  sounds  actually  made  by  the  child  in  the  three  cases, 
will  find  them  very  much  alike.  There  will  in  fact  be  little 
that  even  looks  like  direct  imitation  until  the  child  has  'learned' 
at  least  forty  or  fifty  words. 

The  second  difficulty  lies  in  the  fact  that  different  children, 
in  even  the  clearest  cases  of  the  imitation  of  one  sound,  vary 
from  it  in  so  many  directions.  A  list  of  all  the  sounds  made  in 
response  to  one  sound  heard  is  more  suggestive  of  random 
babble  as  modified  by  various  habits  of  duplicating  sounds, 
than  of  a  direct  potency  of  the  model.  Ten  children  of  the 
same  age  may,  in  response  to  'Christmas,'  say,  kiss,  kissus, 
krismus,  mus,  kim,  kimus,  kiruss,  i-us  and  even  totally  unlike 
vocables  such  as  hi-yi  or  ya-ya. 

The  third  difficulty  is  that  in  those  features  of  word-sounds 
which  are  hard  to  acquire,  such  as  the  'th'  sound,  direct  imita- 
tion is  inadequate.  The  teacher  has  recourse  to  trial  and 
chance  success,  the  spoken  word  serving  as  a  model  to  guide 
satisfaction  and  discomfort.  In  general  no  sound  not  included 
in  the  instinctive  babble  of  children  seems  to  be  acquired  by 
merely  hearing  and  seeing  it  made. 

A  fourth  difficulty  is  that  by  the  doctrine  of  direct  imita- 
tion it  should  not  be  very  much  more  than  two  or  three  times 
as  hard  to  repeat  a  two-  or  three-syllable  series  as  to  repeat  a 
single  syllable.  It  is,  in  fact,  enormously  harder.  This  is, 
of  course,  just  what  is  to  be  expected  if  learning  a  sound 
means  the  selection  from  random  babbling  plus  previous  habits. 
If,  for  instance,  a  child  makes  thirty  monosyllabic  sounds  like 
pa,  ga,  ta,  ma,  pi,  gi,  li,  mi,  etc.,  there  is,  by  chance,  one  chance 
in  thirty  that  in  response  to  a  word  or  phrase  he  will  make  that 
one-syllable  sound  of  his  repertory  which  is  most  like  it,  but 


IMITATION  115 

there  is  only  one  chance  in  nine  hundred  that  he  will  make  that 
two-syllable  combination  of  his  repertory  which  is  most  like  it." 
['II,  p.  254  f.] 

On  the  other  hand  the  variety  of  elementary  sounds  which 
children  make  as  a  result  of  the  instinctive  vocal  play,  before 
there  is  any  question  of  imitation,  may  be  under-estimated. 
There  is  no  need  for  imitation  as  a  creator  of  the  elements  of 
articulate  speech.  Moore  reports  that  "At  the  close  of  the 
fourth  month  it  was  my  impression  that  the  child  .had  made 
well  nigh  all  the  sounds  which  occur  in  the  language."  ['96, 
p.  115.]* 

Perhaps  the  advocates  of  imitation  as  an  original  mental 
function  would  admit  that  witnessed  behavior  does  not  origi- 
nally produce  its  like  in  any  such  uniform,  mechanical  way  as 
a  shock  produces  winking,  or  pain  a  cry.  They  would  perhaps 
claim  only  a  tendency  or  potentiality  or  disposition  toward  the 
production  of  similar  movements  or  results.  They  would, 
that  is,  insist  that  questions  (A3)  and  (B3)  on  page  109  are 
the  really  important  questions. 

This  doctrine  that  there  is  an  original  general  potency  of 
witnessed  behavior  to  evoke  its  like,  but  only  in  the  shape  of  a 
tendency  to  make  like  behavior  appear  a  little  oftener  than  it 
would  by  the  laws  of  exercise  and  effect  alone,  is  one  that  can 

♦The  following  is  a  list  of  the  principal  sounds  and  syllables  actually 
recorded  by  Moore  between  the  twelfth  and  fortieth  weeks: 


In 

crying: 

Eng 

di 

fi 

mi-mi-i 

m5-i-5 

.explosive  a 

€ 

nin  nin 

In  babbling: 

£ng 

Z 

gr-r-r 

bo  wo 

ing 

diddle,  diddle,  g.  e 

ing 

bow  bow 

d 

e 

u-u  u 

bi 

t 

th 

udn 

pop-pa-pS-pS 

b& 

dth 

Qda 

bob-b5 

a 

um  go 

good 

fnom-mi 

6 

i  go 

0 

idi 

ur-r-r 

&  mi 

idl 

titi 

9 

hadn 

mi 

tduck 

Il6  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

at  present  be  neither  demonstrated  nor  refuted.  It  does  not 
much  matter,  for  if  by  original  general  imitativeness  is  meant 
only  a  dubious  possibility  that  witnessed  behavior  will  produce 
behavior  that  is  occasionally  somewhat  more  like  it  than  would 
otherwise  be  expected,  it  is  of  little  practical  consequence. 
For  even  such  a  remnant  of  general  original  imitativeness,  how- 
ever, I  cannot  find  adequate  evidence ;  and  it  has  many  funda- 
mental difficulties.  The  only  tendencies  or  potentialities  or 
dispositions  that  we  know  in  human  behavior  are  probabilities; 
of  connections  between  situation  and  response,  and  these  prob- 
abilities of  connections  in  behavior  mean  simply  partly-made 
connections  present  or  future  between  neurones  and  neurones, 
or  the  greater  readiness  and  efficiency  of  certain  neurones  in 
making  connections. 

The  number  of  specific  partly-formed  bonds,  or  readinesses, 
or  efficiencies,  required  for  a  general  propensity  toward  imita- 
tiveness would,  of  course,  be  legion,  representing  a  greater 
biological  pre-formation  than  that  required  by  all  the  tendencies 
so  far  listed  in  this  inventory.  General  original  imitativeness, 
even  in  the  form  of  a  potentiality,  must,  if  it  means  anything, 
mean  an  extraordinarily  elaborate  inborn  arrangement  of  man's 
neurones. 

The  majority  of  those  who  have  assumed  the  existence  of 
an  original  tendency  to  imitate  have  probably  not  considered 
just  what  arrangements  in  the  nervous  system  it  requires. 
McDougall,  who  does  consider  the  facts,  noting  that  for  each 
special  movement  so  imitated  "we  have  to  assume  the  existence 
of  a  .  .  .  perceptual  disposition  having  this  specific  motor 
tendency,"  allows  man's  original  nature  as  a  possibility  ("It 
may  be  that")  a  limited  number  of  such  percept-movement 
connections.  ['08,  p.  106]  Kirkpatrick  maintains  the  tradi- 
tional belief  in  spite  of  his  awareness  of  this  difficulty,  and 
makes  the  logically  necessary,  but  to  my  mind  preposterous, 
assumption  that  by  original  nature  "the  path  from  the  auditory 
center"  for  a  given  sound  "is  more  open  toward  the  motor 
center  concerned  in  producing  the  same  sound  than  in  any 


IMITATION  117 

Other  direction,"  and  that  "A  similar  truth  holds  regarding 
centers  concerned  in  the  visual  perception  of  movement  and 
the  motor  centers  concerned  in  executing  the  same  movement." 
['09,  p.  293] 

I  judge,  therefore,  that  the  original  attentiveness  of  man 
•to  the  acts,  movements,  positions,  sounds  and  facial  expressions 
of  other  men  and  the  original  satisfyingness  of  the  approval  so 
often  got  by  doing  what  other  men  do,  which  have  been  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  VII,  are  really  the  tendencies  or  predisposi- 
tions or  potentialities  that  do  the  work  in  question.* 

THE  IMITATION  OF  PARTICULAR   FORMS  OF  BEHAVIOR 

*^  There  being  no  general  original  imitativeness,  are  there  per- 
haps certain  particular  movements,  positions,  sounds  and  facial 
expressions  the  perception  of  which  does  produce  their  like? 

McDougall's  answer  is  that,  first,  the  responses  involved  in 
the  principal  instincts  which  he  lists  (i.e.,  flight — fear,  repul- 
sion— disgust,  curiosity — wonder,  pugnacity — anger,  self- 
abasement — subjection,  self-assertion — elation,  parental  instinct 
— tender  emotion)  when  made  by  one  man,  serve  each  as  a  sit- 
uation that  originally  provokes  the  same  response  in  a  spec- 
tator. In  the  second  place,  he  thinks  that  a  few  of  certain 
common  acts  may,  when  seen,  be  specific  stimuli  to  similar  acts 
in  the  infant  who  sees  them.  I  c|uote  from  his  statement  of  the 
first  of  these  theories  at  some  length. 

"I  think  the  facts  compel  us  to  assume  that  in  the  gregar- 
ious animals  each  of  the  principal  instincts  has  a  special  percep- 
tual inlet  (or  recipient  afferent  part)  that  is  adapted  to  receive 

♦Readers  who  have  been  misled  by  antiquated  views  of  imitation  in 
the  lower  animals,  should  note  that  the  existence  of  an  original  general 
tendency  in  the  monkeys  to  duplicate  the  movement  that  the  animal 
observes  another  animal  of  the  same  species  performing,  or  to  produce 
the  resulting  sound  or  position  of  the  body  which  the  other  animal  pro- 
duces, is  very  improbable.  Kinnaman,  Watson,  Haggcrty  and  others  who 
have  observed  the  behavior  of  the  primates  scientifically  find  only  slight 
semblances  of  imitation  of  any  sort,  and  no  signs  whatever  of  a  direct 
original  potency  of  behavior  witnessed  to  create  its  like. 


Il8  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

and  to  elaborate  the  sense-impressions  made  by  the  expressions 
of  the  same  instinct  in  other  animals  of  the  same  species — that, 
e.g.,  the  fear-instinct  has,  besides  others,  a  special  perceptual 
inlet  that  renders  it  excitable  by  the  sound  of  the  cry  of  fear, 
the  instinct  of  pugnacity  a  perceptual  inlet  that  renders  it 
excitable  by  the  sound  of  the  roar  of  anger. 

Human  sympathy  has  its  roots  in  similar  specialisations  of 
the  instinctive  dispositions  on  their  afferent  sides.  In  early 
childhood  sympathetic  emotion  is  almost  wholly  of  this  simple 
kind;  and  all  through  life  most  of  us  continue  to  respond  in 
this  direct  fashion  to  the  expressions  of  the  feelings  and  emo- 
tions of  our  fellowmen.  This  sympathetic  induction  of  emotion 
and  feeling  may  be  observed  in  children  at  an  age  at  which  they 
cannot  be  credited  with  understanding  of  the  significance  of 
the  expressions  that  provoke  their  reactions.  Perhaps  the  ex- 
pression to  which  they  respond  earliest  is  the  sound  of  the 
wailing  of  other  children.  A  Httle  later  the  sight  of  a  smiling 
face,  the  expression  of  pleasure,  provokes  a  smile.  Later  still 
fear,  curiosity,  and,  I  think,  anger,  are  communicated  readily 
in  this  direct  fashion  from  one  child  to  another.  .  .  . 

Adults  vary  much  in  the  degree  to  which  they  display  these 
sympathetic  reactions,  but  in  few  or  none  are  they  wholly  lack- 
ing. A  merry  face  makes  us  feel  brighter ;  a  melancholy  face 
may  cast  a  gloom  over  a  cheerful  company;  when  we  witness 
the  painful  emotion  of  others,  we  experience  sympathetic  pain ; 
when  we  see  others  terror-stricken  or  hear  their  scream  of 
terror,  we  suffer  a  pang  of  fear  though  we  know  nothing  of 
the  cause  of  their  emotion  or  are  indifferent  to  it;  anger  pro- 
vokes anger ;  the  curious  gaze  of  the  passer-by  stirs  our  curios- 
ity; and  a  display  of  tender  emotion  touches,  as  we  say,  a 
tender  chord  in  our  hearts.  In  short,  each  of  the  great  primary 
emotions  that  has  its  characteristic  and  unmistakable  bodily 
expression  seems  to  be  capable  of  being  excited  by  way  of  this 
immediate  sympathetic  response.  If,  then,  the  view  here 
urged  is  true,  we  must  not  say,  as  many  authors  have  done,  that 
sympathy  is  due  to  an  instinct  but  rather  that  sympathy  is 
founded  upon  a  special  adaptation  of  the  receptive  side  of  each 
of  the  principal  instinctive  dispositions,  an  adaptation  that 
renders  each  instinct  capable  of  being  excited  on  the  perception 
of  the  bodily  expressions  of  the  excitement  of  the  same  instinct 
in  other  persons.  .  .  ."     ['08,  pp.  93-95,  passim] 

There  is  something  peculiarly  attractive  and  plausible  in 


IMITATION  119 

this  doctrine  that  "the  instinctive  behavior  of  one  animal 
directly  excites  similar  behavior  on  the  part  of  his  fellows," 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  nature  has  worked  to  so  simple  a 
wholesale  result.  The  similarity  of  the  behavior  is  not  sure 
in  any  case,  and  seems  contrary  to  fact  in  the  case  of  the  tend- 
encies of  pugnacity — anger  and  parental  instinct — ^tender 
emotion. 
^  The  spectators  of  an  infuriated  man,  or  of  two  men  raging 
at  each  other,  are  not  thereby  provoked  to  similar  acts  and 
feelings.  They  manifest  rather  'curiosity-wonder,'  forming  a 
ring  to  stare,  the  world  over.  So  with  other  mammals.  When 
Professor  McDougall  wrote  that  "anger  provokes  anger"  he 
probably  had  in  mind  the  fact  that  angry  behavior  of  A  toward 
B  provokes  angry  behavior  of  B  toward  A.  But  that  is  irrele-  * 
vant  to  his  purpose,  since  he  surely  does  not  wish  to  contend 
that  A's  fleeing  from  B  makes  B  flee  from  A,  that  A's  shrink- 
ing from  B  makes  B  shrink  from  A,  that  A's  sdf-abasement 
before  B  makes  B  abase  himself  before  A. 
y^  The  instinctive  behavior  of  the  mother  in  holding,  cuddling 
and  fondling  does  not  excite  similar  behavior  on  the  part  of  her 
fellow  men  and  women.  They  need  not  be  moved  thereby  to 
cuddle  it,  her,  one  another,  their  own  babies,  or  anything  else. 
The  chief  response  in  them  may  be  approval,  envy  or  mild 
amusement,  as  often  as  tender  emotion  of  the  same  sort  as  her 
behavior  expresses.  The  sight  of  a  child  not  being  tenderly 
treated  is  in  fact  probably  more  likely  to  arouse  tender  emotion 
in  spectators  than  the  sight  of  one  on  whom  it  is  lavished.  It 
is  indeed  the  unloved  rather  than  the  loved  or  the  loving  who 
move  the  motherly  spirit  in  the  spectator.  ^ 

No  one  common  rule  for  the  original  effect  of  the  perception 
of  instinctive  behavior  in  another  man  can  be  given.  His 
behavior  in  attention,  cautious  approach,  the  avoiding  reactions 
and  the  hunting  instinct,  produces  something  much  like  itself. 
His  behavior  in  anger,  combat  for  mastery,  courtship  and 
parental  affection  produces  in  the  spectator  something  as  a  rule 
quite  unlike  itself.     The  effect  of  his  behavior  in  attempted 


120  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

mastery  and  submission  is  dubious,  varying  greatly  with  its 
concomitants  and  being  little  known  in  any  case.  Seeing  a 
man  in  the  attitude  of  submission  may  make  the  spectator  more 
submissive  or  more  aggressive.  Whether  the  perception  of 
instinctive  behavior  originally  produces  like  behavior  is  a  ques- 
tion to  be  studied  separately  in  the  case  of  each  instinct. 

[y^  The  question  is  often  very  difficult.*  Under  present  condi- 
tions children  would  usually  learn  by  training  to  run  from 
whatever  others  ran  from,  to  look  at  whatever  others  looked 
at,  and  the  like,  even  if  there  were  no  original  tendencies  to  do 
so.  Moreover  the  object  or  event,  the  perception  of  which 
causes  A  to  respond  by  a  certain  instinctive  behavior  which 
then  spreads  to  B,  is  likely  to  be  perceived  by  B  also,  so  that 
whether  his  behavior  is  a  response  to  A's  behavior  or  to  the 
object  itself  is  often  in  doubt.  For  example,  A's  fear  at  a 
snake  may  arouse  B's  fear  indirectly  by  merely  calling  B's 
attention  to  the  snake.  Finally  A's  response  may,  upon  his 
perception  of  B,  be  modified  to  include  certain  behavior  which 
acts  as  a  special  signal  to  provoke  approach,  fear,  or  whatever 
the  response  may  be,  in  B.  Thus  the  danger-signal  might  be 
given  by  A  when  frightened  in  company,  though  not  when 
frightened  alone;  and  B  might  respond,  not  to  A's  general 
fright,  but  to  the  danger  signal. 

t  /  The  most  probable  cases  for  the  production,  by  behavior 
witnessed,  of  similar  behavior  in  the  witness,  are  smiling  when 
smiled  at,  laughing  when  others  laugh,  yelling  when  others 
yell,  looking  at  what  others  observe,  listening  when  others 
listen,  running  with  or  after  people  who  are  running  in  the 
same  direction,  ruiming  from  the  focus  whence  others  scatter, 
jabbering  when  others  jabber  and  becoming  silent  as  they  be- 
come silent,  crouching  when  others  crouch,  chasing,  attacking 

*Even  so  simple  a  question  as  whether  the  human  being's  original 
nature  makes  him  smile  at  a  smile  is  in  dispute.  Cooley  thinks  not, 
referring  the  observed  facts  to  the  child's  tendency  to  smile  in  satisfaction 
and  to  the  satisfyingness  of  all  unthreatening.  movement  within  his  field 
of  view.     ['02,  pp.  47  and  64.  J 


IMITATION  121 

and  rending  what  others  hunt,  and  seising  whatever  object 
another  seises. 

In  my  opinion  these  probabilities  are  all,  or  nearly  all,  real, 
and  are  the  chief,  or  even  the  only  components  of  "the  imitative 
tendency  which  shows  itself  in  large  masses  of  men,  and  pro- 
duces panics,  and  orgies,  and  frenzies  of  violence,  and  which 
only  the  rarest  individuals  can  actively  withstand." 

In  the  second  division  of  his  account  of  what  particular 
acts  originally  provoke  similar  acts  in  the  spectator,  McDougall 
says : — 

"For  the  sake  of  completeness  a  fifth  kind  of  imitation  may 
be  mentioned.  It  is  the  imitation  by  very  young  children  of 
movements  that  are  not  expressive  of  feeling  or  emotion ;  it  is 
manifested  at  an  age  when  the  child  cannot  be  credited  with 
ideas  of  movement  or  with  deliberate  self-conscious  imitation. 
A  few  instances  of  this  sort  have  been  reported  by  reliable 
observers;  e.g.,  Preyer  stated  that  his  child  imitated  the  pro- 
trusion of  his  lips  when  in  the  fourth  month  of  life.  These 
cases  have  been  regarded,  by  those  who  have  not  themselves 
witnessed  similar  actions,  as  chance  coincidences,  because  it  is 
impossible  to  bring  them  under  any  recognized  type  of  imita- 
tion. I  have,  however,  carefully  verified  the  occurrence  of  this 
sort  of  imitation  in  two  of  my  own  children;  one  of  them  on 
several  occasions  during  his  fourth  month  repeatedly  put  out 
his  tongue  when  the  person  whose  face  he  was  watching  made 
this  movement.  For  the  explanation  of  any  such  simple  imi- 
tation of  a  particular  movement  at  this  early  age,  we  have  to 
assume  the  existence  of  a  very  simple  percqitual  disposition 
liaving  this  specific  motor  tendency,  and  since  we  cannot 
suppose  such  a  disposition  to  have  been  acquired  at  this  age, 
we  are  compelled  to  suppose  it  to  be  innately  organized.  Such 
an  innate  disposition  would  be  an  extremely  simple  rudimentary 
instinct.  It  may  be  that  every  child  inherits  a  considerable 
number  of  such  rudimentary  instincts,  and  that  they  play  a 
considerable  part  in  facilitating  the  acquisition  of  new  move- 
ments, especially  perhaps  of  speech  movements."    ['08,  p.  106] 

There  may  lie  such  odds  and  ends  of  tendencies  to  dupli- 
cate particular  acts.     If  so,  no  one  knows  what  the  acts  are. 


122  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

So  far,  the  list  begins  and  ends  unimpressively  with  sticking 
out  the  tongue! 

On  the  whole,  the  imitative  tendencies  which  pervade 
human  life  and  which  are  among  the  most  powerful  forces 
with  and  against  which  education  and  social  reform  work, 
are,  for  the  most  part,  not  original  tendencies  to  respond  to 
behavior  seen  by  duplicating  it  in  the  same  mechanical  way 
that  one  responds  to  light  by  contracting  the  pupil,  but  must  be 
explained  as  the  results  of  the  arousal,  by  the  behavior  of  other 
men,  of  either  special  instinctive  responses  or  ideas  and  im- 
pulses which  have  formed,  in  the  course  of  experience,  con- 
nections with  that  sort  of  behavior.  Man  has  a  few  specialized 
original  tendencies  whose  responses  are  for  him  to  do  what  the 
man  forming  the  situation  does.  His  other  tendencies  to 
imitate  are  habits  learned  nowise  differently  from  other  habits.^ 


chapter  ix 
Original  Satisfiers  and  Annoyers 

THE  original  NATURE  OF  WANTS,  INTERESTS  AND  MOTIVES 

Reason  finds  the  aim  of  human  life  the  improvement  and 
satisfaction  of  wants.  By  reducing  those  to  which  the  nature 
of  things  and  men  denies  satisfaction,  or  by  increasing  those 
which  can  be  fulfilled  without  injuring  the  fate  of  others,  man 
makes  his  wants  better.  By  changing  the  environment  into  a 
nature  more  hospitable  to  the  activities  he  craves,  he  satisfies 
them.  The  sciences  and  arts  arose  by  the  impetus  of  wants, 
and  continue  in  their  service.  They  are  the  ultimate  source 
of  all  values. 

The  original  basis  of  the  wants  which  so  truly  do  and  should 
rule  the  world  is  the  original  satisfyingness  of  some  states  of 
affairs  and  annoyingness  of  others.  Out  of  such  original  sat- 
isfiers and  annoyers  grow  all  desires  and  aversions ;  and  in  such 
are  found  the  first  guides  of  learning. 

By  a  satisfying  state  of  affairs  is  meant  roughly  one  which 
the  animal  does  nothing  to  avoid,  often  doing  such  things  as 
attain  and  preserve  it.  By  an  annoying  state  of  affairs  is 
meant  roughly  one  which  the  animal  avoids  or  changes. 

Samples  of  original  satisfiers  or  instinctive  likes  are: — 
To  be  with  other  human  beings  rather  than  alone,  To  be  with 
familiar  human  beings  rather  than  with  strange  ones,  To  move 
when  refreshed.  To  rest  when  tired,  To  be  "not  altogether  M>t- 
enclosed"  wlien  resting  and  at  night. 

Samples  of  original  annoyers  or  instinctive  aversions  are: 
— Bitter  substances  in  the  mouth,  Being  checked  in  locomotion 
by  an  obstacle.  Being  hungry,  Being  looked  at  with  scorn  by 
other  men,  The  sight  and  smell  of  " excrementitious  and  putrid 
things,  blood,  pus,  entrails." 

123 


124  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

To  satisfy  is  not  the  same  as  to  give  sensory  pleasure  and 
to  annoy  is  not  the  same  as  to  give  pain.  The  latter  confusion 
is  specially  misleading,  for  pain  is  only  one  of  many  annoyers, 
and  does  not  inevitably  annoy.  Being  gently  held  when  one 
wants  to  fight,  tho  not  painful,  is  exceedingly  annoying.  A 
mother  may  welcome  the  pain  she  suflfers  for  her  child.  With 
pleasure  the  case  is  somewhat  different.  If  by  it  is  meant 
simply  the  felt  tolerability  and  welcomeness  of  a  state  of  affairs, 
pleasure  is  a  close  symptom — ^almost  a  synonym — of  satisfy- 
ingness.  But  the  pleasurableness  of  certain  sensations  as  com- 
monly described  in  psychological  treatises  is  a  very  partial 
symptom.  Thus  a  sweet  taste  may  be  annoying  and  a  bitter 
taste  welcomed. 

A  long  list  could  be  made  of  such  states  of  affairs  as  feed- 
ing when  hungry,  rest  when  weary,  being  cuddled  when  sleepy, 
running  after  an  animal  that  arouses  hunting  behavior,  getting 
nearer  to  it  in  the  course  of  the  running,  jumping  upon  it  when 
near,  seizing  it  after  the  jump,  subduing  it  after  seizing  it, 
holding  a  baby  after  giving  birth  to  one,  having  it  smile  when 
held,  cooing  to  it  when  it  smiles.  Such  a  list,  however,  can  be 
replaced  by  one  law  which  any  of  its  items  would  exemplify, — 
that  when  any  original  beJmvi-or-series  is  started  and  operates 
successfully,  its  activities  are  satisfying  and  the  situations 
which  they  produce  are  satisfying.  The  absence  of  food  when 
hungry,  being  held  so  that  one  cannot  chase  the  passing  rab- 
bit, being  out-distanced  by  it,  clutching  the  air  instead  of  the 
prey  at  which  one  leaps,  having  the  offered  toy  withdrawn  as 
one  reaches  for  it,  immovability  in  the  obstacle  one  pushes,  are 
samples  from  a  similar  long  list  of  original  annoyers,  all  of  the 
class  described  by  the  law  that  when  any  original  beJiavior- 
series  is  started,  any  failure  of  it  to  operate  successfully  is 
annoying.  For  these  laws  to  be  adequate  to  guide  theory  and 
practice,  however,  the  word  'successfully'  must  be  defined 
objectively. 

Successful  operation  cannot  be  defined  adequately  in  terms 
of  gross  behavior  without  returning  in  a  larger  or  shorter 


SATISFIERS   AND  ANNOYERS  125 

circle  to  satisfyingness  itself.  To  say  that  successful  means 
the  'normal'  action  and  'normal'  consequences  of  instinctive 
behavior  leaves  us  with  'normal'  to  define,  and  in  the  end  it  will 
be  defined  back  again  as  the  successful  or  satisfying.  To  say 
that  'successful'  means  what  furthers  the  life-processes  of  the 
animal  leaves  on  our  hands  as  exceptions  such  cases  as  the 
sacrifice  of  the  mother's  own  life-processes  to  those  of  the 
child  on  the  one  hand,  and  such  cases  as  rest  rather  than  motion 
when  freezing  and  intemperance  of  all  sorts,  on  the  other. 

To  replace  the  life-processes  of  the  individual  by  the  per- 
petuation of  the  species  cuts  out  some  of  these  exceptions,  but 
adds  others.  Victory  is  satisfying,  though  gained  by  accident 
or  numbers ;  bullying  is  satisfying,  though  due  to  qualities  that 
weaken  the  species. 

To  say  that  successful  means  'unimpeded'  or  'unthwarted* 
or  'uninterfered  with'  tells  fairly  well  what  movements  will  be 
satisfying,  since  for  a  movement  to  be  impeded  is  for  it  to  fail 
as  a  movement.  But  to  say  that  to  fail  to  clutch  the  prey, 
clutching  the  air  instead,  is  to  be  impeded  or  thwarted  or  inter- 
fered with  is  simply  to  say  that  an  annoying  situation  is  pro- 
duced. It  is  true  that  mere  freedom  to  complete  the  motions 
to  which  original  nature  impels  in  a  given  situation  is  satisfying, 
but  the  majority  of  original  satisfiers  involves  also  the  produc- 
tion by  the  movement  of  some  one  effect  rather  than  another. 
To  run  when  nature  so  moves  is  satisfying,  but  to  get  from 
this  place,  or  to  that  place,  or  nearer  that  animal,  or  ahead  of 
this  man,  is  commonly  the  larger  satisfier  in  instinctive  re- 
sponses of  flight  and  pursuit. 

THE   PRINCIPLE   OF   READINESS 

Successful  operation  can  in  fact  be  satisfactorily  defined, 
and  what  will  originally  satisfy  and  annoy  can  \ie  safely  pre- 
dicted, only  as  a  characteristic  of  the  internal  behavior  of  the 
neurones.  By  original  nature  a  certain  situation  starts  a 
behavior-series:  this  involves  not  only  actual  conduction  along 


126  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

certain  neurones  and  across  certain  synapses,  but  also  the  read- 
iness of  others  to  conduct*  The  sight  of  the  prey  makes  the 
animal  run  after  it,  and  also  puts  the  conductions  and  connec- 
tions involved  in  jumping  upon  it  when  near  into  a  state  of 
excitability  or  readiness  to  be  made.  Even  the  neurone-con- 
nections involved  in  the  response  of  'clutching'  to  the  situation 
of  *jumping  and  reaching  it'  and  those  involved  in  triumphing 
over  it  and  rending  it  or  taking  it  to  one's  lair  are  in  a  differ- 
ent condition  when  a  chase  is  started  than  they  otherwise  are. 
The  activities  of  the  neurones  which  cause  behavior  are  by 
original  nature  often  arranged  in  long  series  involving  all 
degrees  of  preparedness  for  connection-making  on  the  part  of 
some  as  well  as  actual  connection-making  on  the  part  of  others. 
When  a  child  sees  an  attractive  object  at  a  distance,  his  neu- 
rones may  be  said  to  prophetically  prepare  for  the  whole  series 
of  fixating  it  with  the  eyes,  running  toward  it,  seeing  it  within 
reach,  grasping,  feeling  it  in  his  hand,  and  curiously  manipu- 
lating it. 

The  fact  is  that  it  is  the  neurones,  not  the  body  as  a  whole, 
whose  life  processes  are  primarily  concerned  in  the  'successful' 
operation  of  a  behavior-series.  By  'normal'  or  'successful' 
operation  we  mean  the  externally  observable  signs  of  the  action 
of  neurones  that  are  ready  to  act.  And  by  the  failure,  or 
thwarting,  of  an  original  tendency  we  mean  the  observable 
signs  of  failure  to  conduct  and  connect  in  neurones  which  are 

*That  a  conduction  unit  does  vary,  according  to  certain  temporary 
conditions,  in  its  readiness  to  act  will  be  admitted  by  all  students  of  brain 
physiology.  The  refractory  period  of  a  reflex  is  a  demonstrated  case  of 
relative  unreadiness.  In  the  case  of  the  extensor  thrust  in  the  dog,  for 
example,  the  repetition  of  the  stimulus  within  half  a  second  or  so  does  not 
produce  a  second  thrust,  and  this  unreadiness  has  been  proved  to  be  a 
function  of  the  associative  neurones  concerned.  [See  Ladd  and  Wood- 
worth,  'ii,  p.  164  f.]  That  different  conduction  units  under  the  same 
temporary  conditions  may  vary  in  readiness  to  act  as  a  result  of  inherited 
differentiation  or  their  past  history,  would  also,  I  think,  be  admitted  by 
expects  in  brain  physiology.  This  concept  of  varying  readiness  is, 
indeed,  used  freely  in  discussions  of  the  physiology  of  reflexes,  fatigue, 
recall,  the  association  of  ideas  and  the  like. 


SATISFIERS   AND  ANNOYERS  1 27 

ready  to  so  act.  Such  satisfying  states  of  affairs  as  those  listed 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  are  states  of  affairs  which 
stimulate,  or  at  least  permit,  the  action  of  neural  connections 
and  neural  conductions  that  are  in  readiness  to  act;  and  the 
annoying  states  of  affairs  listed  prevent  such  from  acting. 

The  essential  satisfyingness  in  these  cases  is  then  the  con- 
duction along  neurones  and  across  synapses  that  are  ready  for 
conduction  and  the  essential  annoy ingness  in  these  cases  is  the 
absence  of  such  conduction. 

Now  this  law  holds  good  not  only  in  the  case  of  such 
definite  behavior-series  as  feeding,  hunting,  fighting  or  sex- 
indulgence,  but  throughout  behavior.  Call  the  neurone,  neu- 
rones, synapse,  synapses,  part  of  a  neurone,  part  of  a  synapse, 
parts  of  neurones  or  parts  of  synapses — whatever  makes  up 
the  path  which  is  ready  for  conduction — a  conduction  unit. 
Then  for  a  conduction  unit  ready  to  conduct  to  do  so  is  satis- 
fying, and  for  it  not  to  do  so  is  annoying. 

Along  with  this  concept  of  readiness  to  conduct,  the  oppo- 
site fact  of  unreadiness  or  refractoriness  must  be  considered. 
If,  as  I  believe,  any  conduction  unit  may  be  in  a  condition  of 
repugnance  to  conduction  in  the  sense  that  its  own  activities 
at  the  time  make  it  less  excitable  by  stimuli  to  conduction  than 
is  the  case  with  the  average  condition  of  the  average  conduction 
unit,  and  if  the  law  of  readiness  is  true,  we  should  expect  as  a 
law  of  unreadiness  that  for  a  conduction  unit  unready  to  con- 
duct to  be  forced  to  conduct  would  be  annoying.* 

This  seems  to  be  the  case.  Unreadiness  to  conduct,  if  such 
a  thing  existed,  would  be  expected,  as  a  result  of  long  exercise 
of  conduction  across  a  fatiguable  synapse  and  as  a  result  of 

*It  is  probably  also  the  case  that  for  a  conduction  unit  that  is  unready 
for  conduction  not  to  conduct  is  satisfying;  but  evidence  is  so  slight  upon 
this  complementary  hypothesis  that  it  will  not  be  discussed  here.  It 
is  a  question  whether  the  positive  satisfyingness  of  rest  for  a  function 
after  its  exercise,  of  peace  after  worry,  of  safety  after  fear,  and  the  like 
is  due  to  relief  from  conduction  for  unready  conduction-units  or  to  the 
actual  conduction  of  ready  units  concerned  in  sensing  bodily  languor, 
gentle  speech,  familiar  faces  and  the  like. 


128  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

weakening  of  the  conduction  unit  by  disease.  For,  in  either 
case,  the  common  response  of  protoplasm  would  be  to  protect 
itself  against  less  remunerative  action  in  favor  of  feeding  and 
rest.  Little  is  known  of  conduction  units,  their  exhaustion 
or  their  diseases,  but  that  little  seems  to  show  that  conduction 
along  an  exhausted  or  diseased  conduction  unit  is  annoying. 
In  neurasthenia  and  in  so-called  psychasthenia,  activities  of  the 
nervous  system  which  in  health  are  satisfying  or  indifferent 
become  annoying.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  nervous  sys- 
tem is  in  fine  fettle  from  health  and  abundant  sleep,  activities 
which  on  the  average  are  slightly  distasteful,  are  welcomed. 

I  believe  that  the  original  tendencies  of  man  to  be  satisfied 
and  to  be  annoyed — to  welcome  and  reject — are  described  by 
these  three  laws  of  readiness  and  unreadiness : — ( i )  that  when 
a  conduction  unit  is  ready  to  conduct,  conduction  by  it  is  satis- 
fying, nothing  being  done  to  alter  its  action,  (2)  that  for  a 
conduction  unit  ready  to  conduct  not  to  conduct  is  annoying, 
and  provokes  whatever  responses  nature  provides  in  connection 
with  that  particular  annoying  lack;  (3)  that  when  a  conduction 
unit  unready  for  conduction  is  forced  to  conduct,  conduction 
by  it  is  annoying* 

The  facts  hardest  to  account  for  by  these  laws  are  what 
may   be   called   the  independent  annoyers — states   of   affairs 

*The  account  given  here  of  the  influence  of  readiness  to  conduct  and 
unreadiness  to  conduct  resembles  Ziehen's  doctrine  that  pleasurable  feel- 
ing-tone parallels  a  great,  and  unpleasant  feeling-tone  parallels  a  slight, 
readiness  to  discharge  on  the  part  of  the  neurones  that  are  in  action. 
"The  pleasure-pain  component  of  the  psycho-physiological  process  is 
identical  with  the  readiness  of  the  cortical  cells  to  discharge.  A  certain 
disturbance  m  the  cells  of  the  cortex  (for  example,  a  chemical  change) 
expresses  a  certain  sensory  and  ideational  conscious  content.  In  the 
case  of  any  such  disturbance  the  readiness  to  discharge  can  vary  greatly 
— that  is,  the  tendency  and  capacity  to  transmit  the  disturbance  (for  ex- 
ample, the  chemical  change)  further  along  the  association  or  projection 
fibres  which  arise  from  the  cells,  can  be  greater  or  less.  The  positive 
affective  processes  express  a  great  readiness  to  discharge ;  the  negative,  a 
slight  readiness."  ['03,  p.  15]  Ziehen,  however,  assumes  a  scope  and 
nature  for  the  parallelism  very  different  in  certain  respects  from  those 
to  which  the  account  given  here  would  lead. 


SATISFIERS   AND  ANNOYERS  129 

which  almost  always  annoy,  in  whatever  behavior-series  they 
happen,  such  as  sensory  pains.  It  is  necessary  to  suppose  that 
the  conduction  units  whose  action  causes  sensations  of  pain  are 
almost  always  unready  to  conduct.  And  for  this  supposition 
I  must  admit  that  there  is  no  conclusive  evidence.  There  is 
some,  however.  The  interval  between  the  application  of  the 
external  stimulus  and  the  pain-sensation  is  far  longer  than  is 
the  case  with  other  senses.  Moderate  doses  of  certain  drugs 
prevent  the  action  of  these  conduction  units  without  preventing 
the  action  of  those  concerned  with  other  sensations.*  The  fact 
that  extreme  intensities  of  almost  all  if  not  all  sensory  stimuli 
produce  pain  would  be  simply  and  satisfactorily  explained  by 
the  law  of  unreadiness.  For  it  would  be  an  expected  conse- 
quence of  the  law  of  unreadiness  that  all  conduction  units 
should  be  unready  to  conduct  stimuli  far  more  energetic  than 
those  to  which  they  were  adapted.  The  law  of  unreadiness 
also  accounts  for  the  rare,  but  important,  cases  where  sensory 
pains  do  not  annoy,  but  are  even  potent  satisfiers.  A  man 
knowing  that  pain  in  his  eyes  would  mean  that  he  was  cured 
of  threatened  blindness  might  well  cherish  that  pain  when  it 
came.  In  his  case  we  should  expect  that  the  conduction  units 
concerned  would  be  made  ready. 

Finally,  there  are  no  important  facts  in  opposition  to  the 
supposition  that  unreadiness  to  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  con- 
duction unit  concerned  is  characteristic  of  the  conduction  units 
concerned  in  sensory  pains,  and  there  is  no  important  conflicting 
hypothesis  to  account  for  the  intolerability  of  pain.f 

*The  central  excitation  of  these  conduction  units  producing  halluci- 
nations, illusions  and  images  of  pain  is  very  rare,  as  if  they  were  far 
less  ready  to  act;  even  very  violent  and  prolonged  pain,  as  that  of 
child-birth,  can  not  commonly  be  imaged.  This  fact,  however,  can  be 
explained  otherwise. 

t  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  early  stages  of  psychology  no 
need  was  felt  for  any  cause  for  the  intolerability  of  pain.  That  pain 
should  be  avoided  was  taken  for  granted  for  much  the  same  reason 
that  primitive  physics  took  it  for  granted  that  a  stone  thrown  up 
would  fall  again.  But  intrinsically  there  is  no  more  reason  to  assume 
that  man  must  be  distressed  by  pains  and  act  so  as  to  avoid  them  than 
to  assume  that  he  will  be  distressed  by  sweet  tastes  or  the  color  blue. 
Some  objective  physiological  hypothesis  for  the  fact  there  must  be. 

9 


130  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

The  other  chief  original  independent  annoyers — annoyers 
per  se — besides  the  sensory  pains  are  bitter  tastes,  the  sight, 
touch  and  smell  of  entrails,  excrement  and  putrid  flesh,  touch- 
ing slimy  things,  depression  as  in  fear,  grief,  the  absence  of 
human  beings,  their  disapproving  behavior,  and  very  intense 
sensory  stimuli  of  all  sorts.  For  some  of  these,  such  as  bitter- 
ness, entrails,  excrement,  putrid  flesh,  sliminess,  fear  and  grief, 
we  must  suppose,  as  with  sensory  pain,  that  the  conduction 
units  concerned  are  chronically  unready.  The  explanation  of 
the  others  is  easier.  The  absence  of  human  beings  implies  that 
the  conduction  units  concerned  with  gregarious  behavior,  which 
are  chronically  ready  to  act,  can  not  act.  Disapproval  by  other 
human  beings  implies  that  the  chronic  craving  for  approval  is 
denied  indulgence  and  that  certain  conduction  units,  concerned 
in  the  conditions  of  the  brain  and  body  as  a  whole  which  we 
call  shame,  depression,  and  the  like,  are  forced  to  act.  The 
conduction  units  concerned  with  depression  would  by  any 
hypothesis  be  supposed  to  be,  in  healthy  men,  chronically  un- 
ready to  act.  For  very  intense  sensory  stimuli,  as  has  been 
noted,  man's  neurones  are  chronically  unready. 

The  states  of  affairs  which  have  the  most  reason  to  be  re- 
garded as  original  satisfiers  per  se,  independently  of  any  partic- 
ular behavior-series,  are  sweet,  meaty,  fruity  and  nutty  tastes, 
glitter,  color  and  motion  in  objects  seen,  being  rocked,  swung 
and  carried  (in  childhood),  rhythm  in  percepts  and  movements, 
elation,  the  presence  of  other  human  beings,  their  manifesta- 
tions of  satisfaction  and  their  instinctive  approving  behavior. 
These  are  easily  enough  brought  under  the  rule  of  the  action 
of  conduction  units  almost  always  ready  to  act. 

The  cloying  effect  of  long  continuance  of  a  single  sensory 
satisfaction,  whereby  it  loses  its  zest  and  turns  into  an  annoy- 
ance, is  obviously  in  harmony  with  the  hypothesis  that  satisfy- 
ingness  is  due  to  the  action  of  conduction  units  which  are 
in  readiness  to  act.  Continued  action  of  a  conduction  unit 
would  impair  its  readiness  to  act  and  would  often  involve  the 
continued  deprivation  from  action  of  other  conduction  units. 


SATISFIERS   AND  ANNOYERS  13 1 

The  satisfyingness,  as  a  novelty,  of  states  of  affairs  that  for 
long  thereafter  are  indifferent  would  also  be  in  harmony  with 
the  theory.  For  a  conduction  unit  which  was  in  general  only 
very  slightly  in  readiness  to  act  would,  after  having  acted, 
have  a  rather  long  latent  period  of  indifference. 

Indeed,  the  phenomena  of  interest,  cloying,  fatigue  and 
neurasthenia,  all  seem  to  be  reduced  to  order  when  viewed  as 
results  of  the  conception  of  readiness  of  conduction  units  to 
conduct  and  of  the  laws  that  conduction  by  units  in  readiness 
is  satisfying,  while  conduction  by  units  in  unreadiness  and 
readiness  without  conduction  are  annoying. 

One  important  group  of  satisfiers  and  annoyers  deserves 
special  mention.  Other  things  being  equal,  to  have  sensations, 
to  initiate  movements  and  to  make  things  happen  are  satisfying. 
That  is,  if  these  activities  do  not  involve  any  annoyer  (like  bit- 
terness, the  exercise  of  a  fatigued  synapse,  or  disapproving 
looks)  they  satisfy  in  and  of  themselves.  The  human  nervous 
system  is  'ready  to  act'  not  only  in  such  immediately  practical 
ways  as  get  food,  sleep,  protection  or  offspring,  but  also  in  that 
great  variety  of  ways  described  as  attentiveness  to  novel  sen- 
sory stimuli,  the  curious  examination  of  things,  vocalization, 
visual  exploration,  facial  grimaces,  manipulation,  diffuse  play 
and  'being  a  cause.'  What  may  be  roughly  called  tendencies 
to  general  mental  activity  and  general  physical  activity  (though 
they  are  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  absolutely  general)  when  given 
exercise  satisfy,  and  when  denied  exercise  annoy.  The  con- 
duction units  involved  in  many  acquired  situation-response 
series  also  in  due  time  'crave  exercise' — that  is,  become  'ready 
to  act' — so  that  imaging  or  thinking  may  become  as  true  a 
want  as  food  when  hungry,  or  capture  after  a  chase.* 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  annoyingness  due  to  the  denial 
of  action  to  a  conduction  unit  ready  to  act  differs  essentially 
from  the  annoyingness  due  to  action  by  an  unready  unit.  In 
the  case  of  the  former  (e.g.,  the  absence  of  other  human  beings, 

♦The  facts  noted  in  this  paragraph  will  be  stated  more  fully  and  more 
clearly  in   Chapter   X. 


132  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

lack  of  approving  notice  when  amongst  men,  insomnia,  or  being 
held  when  desirous  to  pursue)  the  observable  external  behavior 
is  of  a  restless,  worrying,  diffuse  and  aggressive  sort ;  and  the 
report  of  the  person  concerned  of  his  internal  state  is  of  irrita- 
tion, longing,  and  of  an  undefined  lack.  In  the  case  of  the 
latter  (e.g.,  tooth-ach^,  a  cut,  a  blinding  light,  vile  tastes  and 
odors,  or  brain-fag)  the  externally  observable  behavior  is  much 
more  often  straightforward,  restricted  and  defensive;  and  the 
person's  report  is  much  oftener  of  anguish,  hatred  and  a  specific 
repulsion. 

Where,  according  to  the  hypothesis,  denial  of  action  to  a 
ready  unit  is  combined  with  forcing  the  action  of  another  un- 
ready unit  (as  in  the  absence  of  food  when  hungry,  the  presence 
of  work  when  exhausted,  or  in  scornful  treatment  by  men)  the 
annoyingness  often  shows  a  mixture  or  alternation  of  these 
two  varieties. 

On  the  whole  it  seems  best  to  assume,  subject  to  further 
knowledge,  the  truth  of  this  hypothesis  that  any  state  of  affairs 
is  originally  satisfying  which  lets  a  conduction  unit  that  is 
ready  to  conduct,  do  so,  and  that  any  state  of  affairs  is  origin- 
ally annoying  which  forces  an  unready  conduction  unit  to  con- 
duct or  restrains  from  cohducting  one  that  is  in  readiness. 

Ordinarily,  then,  any  situation  not  only  produces  full  action 
in  certain  conduction  units,  but  also  predisposes  other  units 
further  on  in  the  chain  toward  or  against  conduction.  Thus 
the  mechanism  of  even  so  simple  a  behavior-series  as  fixating 
a  bright  light,  chasing  a  rabbit,  or  seizing  and  eating  a  berry  is 
extremely  complex.  Such  a  complexity  of  excitants,  checks 
and  releases,  as  well  as  straightforward  connections,  is,  how- 
ever, exactly  what  human  behavior  requires  and  what  the 
physiology  of  the  neurones  suggests.  We  have,  therefore,  the 
problem  of  deciding  what  original  tendencies  are  found  or  put 
in  readiness  and  unreadiness,  by  any  given  situation,  as  well 
as  what  bonds  are  aroused  to  immediate  and  total  action  by  it. 

The  detailed  solution  of  this  problem  for  each  important 


SATISFIERS   AND  ANNOYERS  133 

situation  I  shall  not  attempt.  In  listing  the  readinesses  and 
unreadinesses  which  different  situations  produce  or  call  into 
play,  psychology  can  at  present  make  little  advance  beyond 
what  any  shrewd  observer  can  see  for  himself  once  he  under- 
stands the  general  principles.  If  each  behavior-series  is 
thought  of  as  an  army  sending  scouts  ahead,  or  as  a  train  whose 
arrival  at  any  one  station  means  the  sending  of  signals  on  be- 
fore whereby  this  switch  is  opened,  that  one  closed,  and  the 
other  left  dependent  on  the  size  or  speed  or  color  of  the  train, 
— if  the  sight  of  a  small  object  in  indirect  vision  is  realized  as 
a  cause  of  remote  readinesses  of  the  neurones  connected  with 
the  fovea,  the  neurones  concerned  in  reaching  and  grasping, 
even  possibly  of  the  neurones  concerned  in  tasting, — enough 
has  been  accomplished  for  our  purpose.  To  discover  the  exact 
nature  of  such  readinesses  is  one  of  the  notable  tasks  of  the 
sciences  of  human  behavior. 

the  explanation  of  'multiple  response'  or 
Varied  reaction' 

One  further  general  fact  with  respect  to  original  annoyers 
and  satisfiers  requires  mention.  The  details  of  very  many  of 
the  forms  of  original  behavior  which  have  been  and  will  be 
listed  in  this  inventory  involve  varied  response  to  an  annoying 
State  of  affairs  until  a  certain  satisfying  condition  is  attained. 
That  is,  the  situation  provokes,  not  one  fixed  response,  but  any 
one  of  several  responses,  the  failure  on  the  part  of  the  one  first 
made  to  produce  a  satisfying  state  of  affairs  being  (in  connec- 
tion with  the  rest  of  the  situation)  the  stimulus  to  one  of  the 
other  responses,  so  that  the  animal  does  many  things  and  does 
them  over  and  over  agnin  until  some  one  of  them,  or  some 
external  event,  puts  an  end  to  the  annoying  state  of  affairs  or 
brings  the  requisite  satisfaction.  Thus,  in  responding  to  an 
attractive  object  seen,  a  variety  of  reaching  movements  may  be 
made  until  the  contact  with  the  object  ends  the  series.  The 
contact  then  sets  off  a  variety  of  grasping  movements  until  the 


134  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

satisfying  clutch  of  the  object  ends  the  series.  The  clasping 
of  the  object  may  then  in  turn  set  off  a  variety  of  retractions 
and  flexions  until  the  presence  of  the  object  in  the  mouth 
quiets  these  new  cravings.  Similarly,  the  situation  'being 
held'  when  the  neurones  concerned  in  running  about  are 
ready  to  act,  provokes  a  variety  of  wrigglings,  stiffenings, 
pushings  and  the  like.  The  failure  of  any  one  of  these  to 
relieve  the  annoying  confinement  leads  (in  connection  with  the 
rest  of  the  original  situation)  to  a  more  energetic  or  different 
movement,  the  series  being  terminated  when  some  one  of  the 
varied  reactions  ends  the  annoyance  by  securing  escape.  The 
process  is  easily  observable  in  the  behavior  of  the  lower  animals. 
A  kitten  which  is  utterly  devoid  of  any  acquired  habits  of  re- 
sponse to  the  situation  'being  confined  alone  in  a  small  cage, 
when  hungry,  with  food  outside,'  will  respond  to  that  situation 
quite  instinctively  as  follows.  "It  tries  to  squeeze  through  any 
openings;  it  claws  and  bites  at  the  bars  or  wire;  it  thrusts  its 
paws  out  through  any  opening  and  claws  at  everything  it 
reaches;  it  continues  its  efforts  when  it  strikes  anything  loose 
and  shaky ;  it  may  claw  at  things  within  the  box.  It  does  not 
pay  very  much  attention  to  the  food  outside,  but  seems  simply 
to  strive  instinctively  to  escape  from  confinement.  The  vigor 
with  which  it  struggles  is  extraordinary.  For  eight  or  ten 
minutes  it  will  claw  and  bite  and  squeeze  incessantly."  [Thorn- 
dike,  '98,  edition  of  191 1,  p.  35.] 

The  importance  of  the  original  tendencies  whereby  the 
annoyingness  of  a  certain  state  of  affairs  causes  a  series  of 
varied  movements  until  the  required  satisfier  is  produced*  is 
very  great,  not  only  because  of  their  number  and  frequent 
action,  but  also  because  of  their  very  easy  modification  into 
special  habits  by  the  selection  of  the  'successful'  response  and 
its  association  with  the  situation.  Variation  is  the  first  requi- 
site for  progress  in  the  behavior  of  an  individual  as  it  is  in  the 
development  of  the  race. 

*0r  until  the  animal  is  distracted  from  the  situation,  as  by  fatigue, 
sleep,  or  new  sensory  appeals. 


chapter  x 

Tendencies  to  Minor  Bodily  Movements  and  Cerebral 
Connections 

The  many  original  tendencies  to  movements  concerned 
with  the  management  of  food  after  it  is  in  the  mouth,  with 
breathing,  excretion,  the  care  of  the  eyes,  teeth,  nails  and  skin, 
the  treatment  of  wounds  and  bruises,  with  rest  and  sleep,  and 
with  the  component  details  of  fighting,  flight,  hunting,  the  sex 
instincts  and  the  rest  need  not  be  listed  here.  For  various 
forms  of  special  education  such  a  list  would  be  important. 
For  example,  a  physician  may  profit  from  knowing  that  snuf- 
ling  is  original  while  blowing  the  nose  is  not,  or  that  a  pill  on 
the  extreme  back  of  the  tongue  is  originally  far  likelier  to  arouse 
swallowing  than  one  on  the  front;  and  a  teacher  of  boxing 
might  profitably  study  the  native  responses  to  this  or  that  attack. 
But  for  our  purpose  the  space  had  better  be  kept  for  more  gen- 
erally significant  tendencies. 

vocalization,  visual  exploration  and  manipulation 

The  apparently  aimless  vocalization,  eye-movements,  and 
manipulation  of  objects  in  play  are,  on  the  contrary,  tendencies 
of  the  utmost  importance. 

A  little  child,  apart  from  training,  makes  all  sorts  of 
movements  of  the  vocal  cords  and  mouth-parts  resulting  in 
cooings,  babblings,  yellings,  squealings  and  squawkings  of  g^eat 
variety.  He  moves  his  eyes  so  as  to  bring  different  parts  of  any 
object  which  attracts  visual  attentiveness  upon  the  fovea.  He 
pulls,  pokes,  turns,  picks  up,  drops,  shoves,  rolls,  scratches, 
waves,  and  otherwise  manipulates  an  object  that  permits  it. 

This  behavior  is  characterized,  at  least  to  superficial  ob- 

135 


136  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

servation,  by  aimlessness,  ubiquity,  and  indiscriminateness. 
The  movements  seem  to  do  nothing  for  the  animal,  to  be  made 
to  any  one  situation  (of  a  certain  class)  as  well  as  to  another, 
and  to  be  made  hit-or-miss  in  any  order.  Vocal  play  seems  to 
occur  with  no  ulterior  consequence.  Any  stimulus  from  with- 
out or  within,  which  does  not  connect  with  some  antagonistic 
vocal  activity,  seems  to  evoke  it.  One  sound  or  another,  one 
sequence  of  sounds  or  another,  seems  to  occur  indifferently. 
So,  also,  the  manipulation  of  objects  under  consideration  seems 
quite  without  an  ulterior  end  such  as  the  *reach-grasp-put  in 
mouth'  responses  display.  It  seems  to  be  a  response  to  any 
object  that  permits  it ;  and  turning,  poking,  scratching  seem  to 
occur  as  fortuitous  emergences  from  a  set  of  indifferent  re- 
sponses. A  general  tendency  to  aimless  exercise  of  the  neu- 
rones controlling  the  movements  of  the  eyes,  vocal  apparatus  and 
free  forelimbs  seems  thus  a  just  description  of  the  tendency.  ^ 

For  a  rough  and  elementary  description  it  is  just.  But  a 
more  critical  consideration  of  the  behavior  will  show  that  it  is 
conformable  to  the  general  type  of  a  connection  of  a  definite 
response  with  a  definite  situation,  perpetuated  in  inheritance 
by  its  utility. 

All  original  tendencies  are  aimless  in  the  sense  that  fore- 
sight of  the  consequences  does  not  effect  the  response.  The 
animal  does  not  originally  run  from  a  tiger  because  he  intends 
to  get  away.  He  runs  because  of  the  tiger  and  because  run- 
ning in  that  situation  is  a  satisfier  to  his  neurones.  He  equally 
fingers  the  block  because  it  is  what  it  is  and  because  fingering 
it  satisfies  him.  As  to  the  aim  seen  ab  extra,  the  end  as  gained 
rather  than  as  foreseen,  no  instincts  have  surer  utility  than  the 
apparently  objectless  voice-,  eye-,  and  fingert-play.  For  the 
end  of  voice-play  is  language;  the  end  of  eye-  and  finger-play 
is  knowledge.  In  the  long  run,  the  apparently  random  voice- 
play  is  more  useful  to  the  species  than  the  specific  calls  of  hun- 
ger, pain,  fright,  protection  and  wooing;  and  the  puttering 
with  eyes  and  fingers  is  more  useful  than  the  rriovements  of 
flight,  pursuit,  attack,  capture  and  eating.     What  might  ap7 


MINOR    MOVEMENTS    AND   CONNECTIONS  137 

pear  to  be  perverse  luxuries  in  the  business  of  keeping  one's 
self  and  one's  offspring  alive,  turn  out  to  be,  in  connection 
with  certain  other  tendencies,  means  of  exterminating  all  ene- 
mies, securing  food  in  regular  abundance,  and  remaking  the 
environment  to  suit  man's  almost  indefinite  multiplication. 

The  definiteness  of  the  situations  and  responses  would  be 
revealed  if  observation  could  include  what  goes  on  in  the  nerv- 
ous system  as  well  as  in  more  external  behavior.  The  appar- 
ent identity  of  the  response  to  different  things  (as  when  a  child 
prattles  alike  to  his  mother,  his  doll,  and  the  sky),  and  the  ap- 
parent indiscriminateness  of  the  selection  from  poking,  pull- 
ing, scratching,  and  so  on  in  response  to  apparently  the  same 
thing,  would  then  be  seen  to  be  illusions.  The  inner  action  of 
nutrition,  fatigue  and  growth  plays  here  a  larger  part  in  de- 
ciding which  of  the  many  possible  movements  shall  be  made, 
than  it  does  in  the  case  of  flight  or  fighting,  and  so  justifies  the 
rough  usage  of  the  term  'multiple  response  to  the  same  situa- 
tion.' The  situation,  too,  may  be,  in  addition  to  the  proper  in- 
ner conditions  in  the  neurones,  so  general  as  'anything  that  con- 
trasts with  the  rest  of  the  visual  field'  or  'anything  touching 
the  palm  of  the  hand'  or  even  simply  'being  alive,  awake  and 
with  one's  vocal  apparatus  not  otherwise  engaged.' 

Vocalization,  visual  exploration  and  manipulation  are  then 
to  be  described  as  general  tendencies  to  random  exercise  of 
the  neurones  concerned  in  making  many  sounds,  many  eye 
movements  and  many  manual  experiments  only  if  we  mean  by 
general  and  random  this  particular  generality  and  randomness. 
When  Spencer  and  others  speak  of  'excess'  movements  or  the 
'overflow  of  nerve  energy'  into  'all  sorts  of  movements  or  the 
'chance'  action  of  the  muscles  of  speech,  facial  expression,  ges- 
ture and  manual  play,  they  are  not  describing  the  facts  of 
early  motor  play  accurately.  These  movements  are  in  excess 
of  those  needed  for  eating,  fighting  and  the  like,  but  they  are 
as  grounded  in  fundamental  tendencies  of  the  organism  as  the 
latter.  It  is  not  that  the  nerve  energy  of  man  (and  in  some 
measure  of  the  monkeys)  oz/^r-flows  as  that  of  fishes  and  many 


138  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

mammals  does  not,  but  that  it  flows  into  some  hundreds  of 
channels  productive  of  movements  of  the  vocal  cords,  mouth- 
parts,  facial  muscles,  eyes  and  hands,  as  it  does  not  in  a  fish  or 
mammal.  The  actions  are  'chance'  ones  only  in  the  sense  that 
observation  of  the  external  situation  alone  can  not  predict  them 
nearly  so  well  as  it  can  the  actions  of  eating,  flight  or  attack. 
They  do  not  even  seem  to  be  perfectly  random.  We  can  at  least 
predict  that  an  infant  will  say  'ah  goo'  at  an  earlier  age  than 
he  will  say  'i  da,'  that  he  will  pat  an  object  far  oftener  than  he 
will  place  his  little  finger  on  it,  and  many  other  facts  of  the 
same  sort.  We  can  predict  with  very  great  surety  that  a  child 
will  not  roll  his  eyes  independently  at  a  toy  or  grasp  it  with 
his  thumb  and  ring-finger.  The  randomness  is,  in  any  case, 
limited  to  the  choice  from  among  certain  responses  which,  as 
a  total  group,  are  thoroughly  defined. 

Lest  this  somewhat  subtle  discussion  of  the  more  exact  de- 
scription of  these  tendencies  distract  attention  from  the  sheer 
external  behavior,  I  repeat  that  vocalization  means,  roughly, 
the  responding  by  many  different  sounds  in  many  different  se- 
quences to  many  different  external  situations,  and  that  from  it 
develop,  under  training,  speech,  song  and  other  vocal  arts. 
Visual  exploration  means,  roughly,  responding  by  many  eye 
movements  so  as  to  bring  various  parts  of  an  object  upon  the 
spot  of  clearest  vision,  and  from  it  develops  much  in  our  per- 
ceptions of  'things,'  our  habits  of  purposive  examination,  read- 
ing and  the  like.  Manipulation  means,  roughly,  responding 
by  many  different  arm,  hand  and  finger  movements  to  many 
different  objects,  and  gives  the  possibility  of  the  habits  of  using 
tools,  writing,  drawing,  and  the  bulk  of  modern  skilled 
occupations. 

OTHER   POSSIBLE  SPECIALIZATIONS 

Constructiveness. — In  the  ordinary  descriptions  of  original 
tendencies  by  the  consequences  to  which  they  lead,  'destructive- 
ness'  and  'constructiveness'  occupy  prominent  places.  This 
apparent  contradiction  is  due  simply  to  the  impropriety  of  de- 


MINOR    MOVEMENTS    AND    CONNECTIONS  139 

scribing  a  tendency  by  its  consequences  instead  of  by  the  actual 
situation  and  response.  Original  nature  knows  nothing  of 
destroying  or  creating — of  changing  an  object  into  a  status 
less  or  more  profitable  to  the  welfare  of  the  world  in  general. 
Its  tendency  is  simply  to  manipulate  objects  in  the  fashion 
that  has  just  been  described.  With  this  go  the  satisfactions 
of  doing  something  rather  than  nothing,  of  getting  a  more 
varied  and  novel  series  of  impressions,  and  of  having  acts  pro- 
duce perceptible  changes,  which  are  taken  account  of  under  the 
proper  instinctive  interests.  Waving  of  arms  and  legs,  kick- 
ing and  rolling,  grimacing,  prattling,  dropping  toys,  blowing 
whistles,  tearing  books,  digging  holes  in  the  sand,  and  build- 
ing with  blocks  are  all  of  the  same  pattern.  No  one  would 
think  it  proper  to  speak  of  instincts  of  constructing  and  de- 
stroying the  air  in  the  sense  of  making  words  and  making 
senseless  jabber.  One  word,  vocalization,  is  wisely  used  to 
describe  the  tendency  to  make  babbling  movements.  So  one 
word,  manipulation,  may  replace  constructiveness  and  destruc- 
tiveness  to  signify  the  tendency  to  make  certain  hand,  arm  and 
finger  movements. 

Cleanliness. — ^James  ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  434f.]  thinks  it  prob- 
able that  there  is  "a  primitive  impulse  to  clean  one's  self,"  but 
perhaps  cleanliness  is  not  the  best  name  for  the  tendency  to  be 
annoyed  by  sticky  and  slimy  stuff  on  the  hands  and  to  wipe 
it  off  on  anything  handy,  commonly  the  body  itself  or  what 
happens  to  be  covering  it !  That  is  atout  as  far  as  original 
'cleanliness'  goes.  It  is  instructive  to  note  that  the  mysophobia 
or  dread  of  foulness  in  some  insane  people,  which  James  takes 
to  be  "the  convulsive  exaggeration"  of  an  original  impulse  to 
cleanliness,  is  almost  always  to  wash  the  hands — not  the  face 
or  feet — "a  hundred  times  a  day."  There  are  tendencies  to 
'lick  one's  chops,'  to  pick  at  scabs,  to  free  the  teeth  by  tongue 
or  fingier  from  objects  stuck  between  them,  to  rub  one's  fingers 
between  one's  toes  and  to  bite  one's  nails,  which  are,  perhaps, 
homologous  with  animal  cleanliness,  and  like  it  better  named 
tendencies  to  care  for  the  skin  and  mouth-parts. 


I40  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

Adornment  and  Art. — Kirkpatrick  and  others  think  that 
there  is  an  orig-inal  specific  tendency  to  adorn  one's  body.  But 
it  seems  more  probable  that  painting,  tattooing,  decoration  with 
shells,  flowers,  clothes,  feathers  and  the  like  are  all  learned 
responses  selected  by  their  value  in  connection  with  gaining  no- 
tice, approval,  mastery,  and  success  in  courtship. 

The  originality  of  a  specific  tendency  to  make  beautiful 
objects  may  also  be  doubted.  Constructiveness  of  all  sorts 
seems  to  be  the  result  of  experience  acting  on  general  manipula- 
tive play.  Habits  of  making  admired,  rather  than  unnoticed 
or  disliked,  objects  would  easily  be  selected  for  survival.  This, 
I  judge,  is  all  that  Marshall  really  claims  in  his  statement  that 
the  "art-impulse"  is  a  "blind  impulse  leading  man  to  create 
with  little  or  no  notion  of  the  end  they  have  in  view  .  .  . 
a  common  heritage  for  all  members  of  our  race."  ['94,  p.  lOi.] 
This  original  'art-impulse,'  he  continues,  is  for  man  "to  use  his 
surplus  vigor  in  crude  attempts  .  .  .  which,  in  their  devel- 
oped form,  [italics  mine]  give  us  our  best  art  products." 
Hirn,  who  has  made  the  most  acute  study  of  the  origins  of  art, 
finds  them  chiefly  in  "the  instinctive  tendency  to  express  over- 
mastering feeling,  tg  enhance  pleasure,  and  to  seek  relief  from 
pain,"  laying  especial  emphasis  on  the  tendency  to  engage  in 
mental  activity  for  its  own  sake,  which,  following  the  tradi- 
tional psychological  terminology,  he  describes  as  "a  yearning 
after  increased  consciousness,  which  leads  us  to  pursue,  even 
at  the  risk  of  some  passing  pain,  all  feelings  and  emotions  by 
which  our  sensation  of  life  is  reinforced  and  intensified," 
['00,  p.  73.] 

CURIOSITY  AND  MENTAL  CONTROL 

Curiosity. — Many  of  the  constituents  of  what  is  vaguely 
called  instinctive  curiosity  have  already  been  listed.  Atten- 
tion to  novel  objects  and  human  behavior  (pp.  46  f.  and  88), 
cautious  approach  (p.  65),  reaching  and  grasping  (p.  50),  the 
food-trying  reactions  of  putting  in  the  mouth,  tasting  and 
biting,  general  exploration  with  the  eyes  and  manipulation  with 


MINOR    MOVEMENTS    AND    CONNECTIONS  I4I 

the  hands  (pp.  51  and  135)  are  the  responses  which,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  situations  that  evoke  them,  make  up  a  large  part 
of  so-called  curious  behavior. 

The  element  not  hitherto  listed  may  best  be  named  the  love 
of  sensory  life  for  its  own  sake.  Merely  to  have  sensations  is, 
other  things  being  equal,  satisfying  to  man.  Mental  emptiness 
is  one  of  his  great  annoyers.  We  may  justly  picture  the 
brain  of  man  as  containing  many  neurones,  in  connection  with 
the  sensory  neurones,  which  crave  stimulation — are  in  "readi- 
ness to  conduct" — ^though  no  immediate  gratification  of  any 
more  practical  want  follows  their  action.  Man  wants  sense 
impressions  for  sensation's  sake.  Novel  experiences  are  to 
him  their  own  sufficient  reward.  It  is  because  they  satisfy 
this  want  as  well  as  because  of  their  intrinsic  satisfyingness, 
that  visual  exploration  and  manipulation  are  the  almost  inces- 
sant occupations  of  our  waking  infancy. 

The  Instinct  of  Multiform  Mental  Activity. — The  hypoth- 
esis that  man's  brain  contains  many  neurones  in  'readiness  to 
act'  besides  those  whose  action  is  concerned  in  the  behavior- 
series  of  the  specific  instincts  must,  I  think,  be  carried  further. 
There  are  not  only  neurones  ready  to  be  set  in  action  by  direct 
stimuli  from  the  sense-organs,  but  also  neurones  ready  to  be 
set  in  action  by  more  remote  or  secondary  connections.  For 
example,  a  baby  likes  not  only  to  see  a  pile  of  blocks  tumble 
or  a  wheel  go  around,  but  also  to  find  the  blocks  tumbling 
when  he  hits  them,  or  the  wheel  revolving  ivheti  he  pushes  a 
spring.  Satisfactions  of  the  second  sort  are,  indeed,  if  any- 
thing the  more  potent.  Merely  hearing  the  toot  of  a  horn  is 
a  feeble  joy  compared  to  blowing  it.  Now  'tumbling  when  I 
hit  them,'  'whirling  when  I  push,'  and  'tooting  when  I  blow'  are 
samples  of  secondary  connections,  a  step  removed  from  mere 
sensations.  They  represent  the  action  of  the  neurones  con- 
cerned in  the  child's  manipulations,  those  concerned  in  his  sen- 
sations and  those  concerned  in  connecting  the  latter  with  the 
former.  They  possess  the  satisfyingness  of  manipulation,  of  the 
love  of  sensory  life  per  se,  and  something  more,  which,  for  lack 


142  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

of  a  better  name,  I  shall  call  the  satis fy in gness  of  mental  control. 
To  do  something  and  have  something  happen  as  the  conse- 
quence is,  other  things  being  equal,  instinctively  satisfying, 
whatever  be  done  and  whatever  be  the  consequent  happening.* 

Now  mental  control,  or  doing  something  and  having  some- 
thing happen,  is  satisfying  in  very  many  concrete  forms.  Not 
only  making  movements  and  thereby  getting  sensations,  but 
also  making  an  ideal  plan  and  thereby  getting  a  conclusion, 
making  an  imaginary  person  and  thereby  getting  further  imag- 
inations of  how  he  would  act,  and  countless  other  'gettings  from 
doings,'  are  satisfying.  They  are  originally  satisfying  since,  as 
soon  as  training  gives  the  ability  to  make  the  plan  or  image 
and  get  the  result,  nature  gives  satisfyingness  to  the  connec- 
tion.f 

No  assumption  whatever  of  teleology  or  of  prearranged 
favoring  of  such  conditions  as  later  life  requires  is  involved  in 
the  satisfyingness  of  doing  something  and  having  something 
happen.  I  should,  for  example,  replace  in  Lindley's  descrip- 
tion ['97,  p.  436]  the  italicized  words  by  those  in  parentheses. 

"Let  it  be  called  a  general  impulse  or  instinct  to  exercise  the 
intelligence  as  such  (secondary  neurone  connections).  Such 
a  gymnastic  must  consist  (consists)  in  the  most  widely  various 
sorts  of  activity,  a  deployment  as  far  as  possible  of  all  resources 
of  body  and  mind  in  ways  which  are  to  he  of  use  later  (are  de- 
termined by  the  excitability  of  conduction  units  apart  from 
those  concerned  in  the  more  specialized  instincts.)" 

Mental  activity  is  then,  other  things  being  equal,  satisfying 
almost  or  quite  in  general.     The  neurones  concerned  in  the 

*This  is,  I  judge,  the  fact  which  Groos  and  others  have  in  mind, 
or  should  have  in  mind,  when  they  speak  of  man's  instinct  of  'pleasure  at 
being  a  cause/  or  of  'experimentation.'  A  typical  illustration  of  the  earlier 
appearances  of  such  behavior  is  the  following  from  Shinn  ['99,  p.  10]  : 
"In  the  twentieth  month  she  would  often  cover  her  eyes  with  her  hands 
and  take  them  away;  hide  her  face  in  a  cushion,  or  on  her  own  arms, 
often  saying,  'Dark,'  then  look  up, — 'Light  now.' " 

t  The  'other  things  being  equal'  is  of  course  implied  throughout.  Mak- 
ing a  connection  that  has  to  be  made  against  strong  cravings  to  rest  or  to 
do  something  else  may  be  very  annoying. 


MINOR    MOVEMENTS   AND   CONNECTIONS  143 

special  instincts  are  not  the  only  ones  in  readiness  to  act. 
Neurones  are  roused  to  action  in  the  course  of  learning  which 
also  were  ready  to  act  and  whose  action  therefore  is  satisfying. 
It  is  as  instinctive  or  'natural'  for  certain  men  to  enjoy  the  un- 
forced exercise  of  thought  and  skill  as  to  enjoy  food,  sleep, 
companionship,  approval  or  conquest. 

The  Instinct  of  Multiform  Physical  Activity. — A  similar  line 
of  observation  and  reasoning  justifies  the  conclusion  that,  other 
things  being  equal,  many  unforced  movements  besides  those 
specifically  made  in  response  to  food  to  be  got,  foes  to  be  sub- 
dued and  the  like,  are  originally  satisfying.  It  is  as  instinctive 
for  the  baby  to  curl  its  toes,  wave  its  arms  and  wriggle  its  head 
as  to  suckle.  The  boy  instinctively  enjoys  a  gymnasium  as  well 
as  chasing  cats.  The  grasping,  chasing,  wrestling  and  pulling 
in  response  to  the  real  situation  of  the  hunt  doubtless  have  a 
richer  zest  than  the  club-swinging  or  fancy  tumbling  done,  as 
it  were,  in  a  biological  vacuum,  but  what  satisfaction  they  do 
g^ve  may  be  instinctive.  After  long  rest  almost  any  unforced 
movement  is  more  satisfying  to  the  child  than  further  inaction 
would  be. 

The  Instinct  of  Workmanship  and  the  Desire  for  Excel' 
lence. — ^The  gifted  economist  Veblen  uses  as  a  pillar  for  his 
doctrines  of  human  productive  labor  the  existence  of  an  "in- 
stinct of  workmanship"  which  he  defines  as  follows : — 

"He  (man)  is  an  agent  seeking  in  every  act  the  accomp- 
lishment of  some  concrete,  objective,  impersonal  end.  By  force 
of  his  being  such  an  agent,  he  is  {possessed  of  a  taste  for  effec- 
tive work,  and  a  distaste  for  futile  effort.  He  has  a  sense  of 
the  merit  of  serviceability  or  efficiency  and  of  the  demerit  of 
futility,  waste,  or  incapacity.  This  aptitude  or  propensity 
may  be  called  the  instinct  of  workmanship."     ['99,  p.  15.] 

Such  a  tendency  surely  comes  to  exist  in  very  many  men 
under  the  ordinary  circumstances  of  life,  and  may  properly  be 
used  in  economics  as  a  postulate,  but  it  is  a  complex  of  several 
sets  of  original  connections  and  of  their  guidance  by  material 
and  human  surroundings.  Chief  among  the  former  are  the 
tendency  to  multiform  physical  and  multifonn  mental  activity 


144  THE  ORIGINAL  NATURE  OF   MAN 

just  described,  the  satisfyingness  of  mental  control  and  of 
human  approval,  and  annoyance  at  being  thwarted  and  at 
human  contempt.  Amongst  the  guiding  factors  are  objects 
to  be  duplicated,  ends  to  be  gained  and  the  human  customs  of 
approving  certain  products  of  intellect  or  skill  and  condemning 
others.  Thus  the  child  who  fumbles  with  blocks,  content  with 
producing  any  effect,  almost  universally  comes  to  be  a  boy 
who  is  satisfied  by  only  such  effects  as  approximate  an  ideal  of 
his  own. 

The  same  sort  of  account  may  be  given  of  the  "desire  for 
excellence  for  its  own  sake"  of  which  Alfred  Marshall  says : — 

"...  The  desire  for  excellence  for  its  own  sake  grad- 
uates down  from  that  of  a  Newton,  or  a  Stradivarius,  to  that 
of  the  fisherman  who,  even  when  no  one  is  looking  and  he  is 
not  in  a  hurry,  delights  in  handling  his  craft  well,  and  in  the 
fact  that  she  is  well  built  and  responds  promptly  to  his  guid- 
ance ...  A  large  part  of  the  demand  for  the  most  highly 
skilled  professional  services  and  the  best  work  of  the  mechani- 
cal artisan,  arises  from  the  delight  that  people  have  in  the  train- 
ing of  their  own  faculties,  and  in  exercising  them  by  the  aid  of 
the  most  delicately  adjustable  and  responsive  implements." 
['90,  vol.  I,  p.  147.] 

This  potent  mover  of  men's  economic  and  recreative  activi- 
ties has  its  tap-root  in  the  instinct  of  multiform  mental  and 
physical  activity. 

PLAY 

No  doubt  much  of  the  behavior  called  play  represents  orig- 
inal bonds  between  certain  situations  and  certain  responses. 
Play,  in  any  one  of  the  common  meanings  of  the  word,  is  more 
original,  less  a  product  of  training,  than  the  occupations  which 
are  distinguished  as  work.  But,  as  has  repeatedly  been  the 
case  with  other  tendencies,  the  vagiie  assumption  of  a  tendency 
to  manifest,  apart  from  training,  more  or  less  of  the  behavior 
called  play,  needs  specification.  The  majority  of  the  disputes 
about  the  service  of  play  in  education  hark  back  to  vagueness 
in  defining  what  play  is  to  be  taken  to  mean ;  and  in  deciding 


MINOR    MOVEMENTS    AND   CONNECTIONS  I45 

which  elements  in  it  are  original  and  which  are  learned.  It 
is  therefore  well  to  remind  oneself  first  of  all  of  what  the  orig- 
inal tendencies  to  play  are  not. 

There  is  no  original  tendency  to  act  uselessly  rather  than 
usefully,  or  to  make-believe  rather  than  to  accept  matters  of 
fact.  Nor  is  there  a  full  set  of  tendencies  to  mock  in  a  sportive 
way  all  the  separate  behavior-series  of  feeding,  hunting,  seeking 
shelter,  running  away,  and  so  on  which  have  been  listed  in 
this  and  the  previous  chapters.  Man  has  not  two  original  na- 
tures— one  matter  of  fact,  the  other  playful, — from  one  to 
the  other  of  which  he  shifts  by  inner  magic. 

The  majority  of  the  original  tendencies  from  which  human 
play  develops  are  not  peculiar  to  play,  but  originate  serious 
activities  as  v^ell.  Such  are  manipulation,  facial  expression, 
vocalization,  multiform  mental  activity  and  multiform  physical 
activity.  The  same  original  tendency,  manipulation,  is  the  root 
of  making  mud-pies  and  apple-pies.  Vocalization  produces 
matter-of-fact,  utilitarian  speech  and  playful  screams  or  songs. 
To  explain  the  greater  part  of  original  play,  no  additions  what- 
ever to  the  account  of  original  nature  so  far  given  are  needed. 

Another  fraction  of  original  play  is  accounted  for  by  the 
fact,  which  was  mentioned  in  Chapter  II  and  which  will  be 
discussed  later,  that  the  original  tendencies  so  far  described 
for  convenience  as  if  they  manifested  themselves  in  distinct 
unitary  situation-response  series,  do  not  in  life  come  thus  neatly 
separated.  Any  situation  in  life  may  be  enormously  compli- 
cated, so  that  a  mixture  from  responses  of,  say,  curiosity,  hunt- 
ing, kindliness,  and  manipulation  may  be  its  result.  A  two- 
year-old  child  may  be  to  a  six-year-old  child,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  a  novelty,  a  small  object  passing  him,  a  fellow-man, 
and  a  stimulus  to  secondary  connections,  and  so  may  be  stared 
at,  run  after,  patted  and  felt  of.  So  the  six-year-old  may  not 
hunt  and  subdue,  nor  feed  and  protect,  but,  as  we  say,  'play  with' 
the  baby.  Any  situation  in  life  may  be  only  a  fragment — in 
the  artificial  life  of  civilization,  a  mutilation — of  any  of  the 
total  situations  to  which  original  nature  is  previously  adapted. 
10 


146  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

Consequently,  it  may  produce  only  a  fragment  of  the  response 
which  the  total  situation  would  have  produced.  A  dig  in  the 
ribs,  unpreceded  by  threatening  approach  and  unaccompanied  by 
projected  head,  angry  face,  growling  and  snarls,  must  call  forth 
a  different  response  from  that  which  it  would  call  forth  if  with 
these  accompaniments. 

In  a  similar  way  the  'mutilation'  of  the  conditions  within 
the  organism  may  give  to  a  tendency  an  appearance  of  being 
playful  beyond  its  deserts.  If  infants  from  a  year  to  three 
years  of  age  lived  in  such  a  community  as  a  human  settlement 
seems  likely  to  have  been  twenty-five  thousand  years  ago,  their 
restless  examination  of  small  objects  would  perhaps  seem  as 
utilitarian  as  their  father's  hunting. 

There  are  left,  as  possible  instincts  of  play  proper,  not 
already  listed,  the  special  tendencies  to  hunt  for  hunting's  sake 
in  ways  notably  different  from  the  'real'  hunt;  to  fight  for 
fighting's  sake  in  ways  notably  different  from  the  'real'  fight; 
to  fondle  and  pet  in  ways  notably  different  from  the  'real' 
mothering.  It  may  be,  that  is,  that  in  these  cases  nature  pro- 
vides preparation  for  food-getting,  for  the  struggle  for  females 
and  for  motherhood  by  connecting  special  play-responses  in 
early  life  to  situations  like,  though  not  identical  with,  those 
to  be  met  in  earnest.  Whether  the  chasing,  fleeing,  catching, 
wrestling,  jumping  upon  domestic  animals  and  other  children, 
fisticuffs,  hair-pulling,  and  the  like,  and  the  holding,  fondling 
and  petting  babies,  dolls,  pets  and  toys,  by  the  young,  require 
such  special  instincts  or  are  explainable  as  the  Veal'  instincts, 
modified  by  complication  or  distortion  of  the  situations  and  by 
training,  I  shall  not  try  to  decide.  In  any  case,  in  playful 
hunting,  fighting,  mothering,  fleeing,  home-making  and  the 
like,  training  early  permeates  and  overlays  man's  original 
nature.  , 

RANDOM    MOVEMENTS 

Of  the  'varied  reactions'  which  were  discussed  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  some  have  not  been  shown  to  be  definitely  bound 


MINOR   MOVEMENTS   AND   CONNECTIONS  147 

to  any  one  particular  situation.  Of  the  minor  bodily  move- 
ments of  vocalization,  visual  exploration,  manipulation  and 
doing  something  to  have  something  happen  described  in  this 
chapter,  many  seem  to  be  evoked  by  merely  being  alive,  awake, 
energetic  and  in  the  presence  of  something  or  other.  Of  the 
sprawlings,  kicking^  and  finger  movements  of  the  first  four 
months,  many  seem,  at  least  to  ordinary  observation,  to  come 
for  no  particular  reason. 

Such  facts  have  led  to  the  assumption  that  a  smaller  or 
larger  fraction  of  human  behavior  is  'undetermined,'  'random,' 
'diffuse,'  or  'spasmodic'  Baldwin  expressed  the  orthodox 
view  of  twenty^five  years  ago  when  he  wrote :  "Such  reactions 
which  are  simply  the  discharges,  the  outbursts  of  the  organism, 
independent  of  definite  external  stimulation  are  called  spontan- 
eous. So  the  incessant  random  movements  of  infants  and  the 
extraordinary  rubber-like  activity  of  the  year-old  child."  [*9i, 
P-  303-]  The  following  quotations  from  recent  standard 
books  show  that  this  view  is  still  current,  though  tempered 
_  somewhat  in  its  expression.  In  speaking  of  the  movements 
which  an  infant  makes  when  "a  bright  and  noisy  rattle  is  pre- 
sented to  the  notice  of  a  child,"  Angell  writes :  "At  first  these 
movements  are  inevitably  spasmodic,  vague  and  uncoordinated. 
They  simply  suggest,  as  we  observe  them,  some  sort  of  explo- 
sion in  the  motor  centres."  ['04,  p.  349.]  Pillsbury  ['08,  p. 
155]  says:  "A  certain  number  of  responses  are  predetermined 
at  birth  by  the  racial  acquirements  of  instinct,  but  in  man  and 
the  higher  animals  a  vastly  greater  number  of  movements  are 
possible  from  the  side  of  the  nervous  connections  than  are  fixed 
or  predetermined."  Colvin  writes,  with  similar  caution,  that : 
"The  higher  forms  also  possess  at  birth  certain  diffuse  and  un- 
coordinated reactions  that  seem  to  serve  no  immediate  purpose, 
since  they  are  not  definite  enough  to  bring  about  any  helpful 
adjustments.  An  example  of  these  latter  reactions  may  be 
found  in  the  ill-directed  and  seemingly  wasteful  movements  of 
the  infant,  who  on  seeing  a  brilliantly  colored  ball  suspended 
before  it,  makes  a  multitude  of  movements,  none  of  which 


148  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

may  accomplish  the  result  of  obtaining  the  ball.  The  visual 
stimulus  of  the  colored  ball  sets  up  in  this  particular  instance 
a  nervous  activity  that  finds  no  direct  and  definite  discharge, 
spreading  itself  over  the  entire  nervous  system.  .  ,  .'* 
['II,  p.  9.] 

Early  in  this  volume  it  was  shown  that  human  behavior 
could  not  be  random  in  the  strict  sense.  Nothing  in  the  world 
is  so.  Nor  do  these  writers  intend  to  give  that  impression. 
They  do,  however,  give,  and  probably  intend  to  give,  the 
impression  that  irrelevant  internal  happenings,  casualties  of  the 
nervous  system,  play  a  considerable  role  in  causing  the  variety 
of  human  behavior.  The  words  spasmodic,  explosive,  not  iixed, 
not  predetermined,  diffuse,  uncoordinated  and  indefinite  also 
give — ^whether  by  the  writers'  intention  or  not — the  impres- 
sion that,  in  the  case  of  many  situations,  any  selection  from  a 
very  great  many  conduction  units  is  as  likely  to  be  set  in  action 
as  any  other  selection,  the  external  situation  itself  having  no 
appreciable  original  bonds. 

The  words  random,  diffuse,  indefinite  and  the  like  are  so 
very  economical  as  descriptions  of  certain  features  of  varied 
response,  general  mental  and  physical  activity,  and  the  early 
infantile  gymnastics  that  anybody  is  tempted  to  use  them  and 
is  easily  excusable.  It  is  also  a  delicate  task  to  decide  whether 
the  results  of  the  irrelevant  internal  happenings  are  consider- 
able or  inconsiderable,  whether  one  should  give  the  impression 
that  one  situation  can  provoke  'any'  selection  from  *a  very  great 
number'  of  conduction  units  or  'certain'  selections  from 
'many,' — whether  an  external  situation  has  no  appreciable 
bonds  or  no  emphatic  bonds.  But  I  cannot  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  such  statements  as  those  quoted  above,  and  such  as 
I  have  myself  been  guilty  of  in  earlier  writings,  do  mislead. 
The  'rubber-like  activity  of  the  year-old  child'  is,  I  believe,  in- 
stigated by  the  appeal  of  external  objects  and  directed  step  by 
step  by  the  satisfactions  which  arise  from  specific  sights, 
sounds,  touches  and  movements.  The  baby's  response  to  the 
rattle  dangled  before  it  does  not  suggest  to  me  an  explosion  in 


MINOR   MOVEMENTS   AND   CONNECTIONS  149 

the  motor  centres,  but  only  a  rich  and  changing,  but  perfectly 
definable,  response-group  which  does  have  a  constant  relation 
to  that  sort  of  a  situation.  The  response  to  the  rattle  seems 
vague  if  it  is  compared  with  some  single  stereotyped  instinct; 
but  it  seems  definable,  indeed  very  limited,  if  it  is  compared 
with  all  the  baby's  repertory  or  with  what  an  actual  brain  ex- 
plosion might  be  supposed  to  produce.  For  example,  let  the 
four-months-old  child  be  presented  with  the  rattle,  the  breast  or 
bottle,  a  sharp  slap,  or  a  rhythmic  rocking.  The  four  responses 
would  be  confused  by  no  one.  Or  consider  that  it  never  does 
what  it  should  do  from  sheer  diffusion  of  the  conduction.  No 
child  ever  responds  to  a  dangling  rattle  by  one-tenth  or 
even  one-twentieth  of  his  total  repertory. 

After  all,  while  the  more  variegated  and  unstable  connec- 
tions are  certainly  not  'fixed'  or  'predetermined'  in  the  sense 
that  each  situation  is  married  to  some  one  response,  their 
divorce  being  a  rare  and  serious  matter,  no  more  are  they  dif- 
fuse or  indefinite  in  any  strict  sense  of  those  terms.  Whatever 
use  rhetorical  necessities  may  direct  of  the  phrases  'random  re- 
sponses,' 'general  mental  and  physical  activity,'  'varied  reac- 
tion' and  the  like,  the  student  of  human  nature  must  bear  in 
mind  just  what  the  peculiar  limited  randomness,  generality,  or 
variety  is.  What  it  is,  I  have  tried  to  describe  and  illustrate 
in  the  course  of  this  inventory. 


chapter  xi 
The  Emotions  and  Their  Expression 

difficulties  in  identifying  and  studying 
emotional  states 

It  has  been  noted  from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  this 
inventory  of  man's  original  nature  that  certain  situations  arouse 
in  the  neurones  responses  productive  of  the  inner  states  of  fear, 
elation,  depression,  and  the  like.  Rather  scant  justice  has  so 
far  been  done  to  the  problems  of  what  particular  neurone  action 
of  this  sort,  and  so  what  inner  emotional  state,  any  given  sit- 
uation will  originally  provoke;  and  to  the  general  problem  of 
the  nature  of  these  neurone-actions,  and  their  original  status. 

Theoretically  we  could  parallel  our  inventory  of  the  bonds 
between  what  may  happen  to  a  man  and  what  he  will,  apart 
from  training,  do  in  response  thereto  in  the  way  of  running, 
smiling,  crying,  striking,  being  satisfied  or  annoyed  and  the 
like,  by  an  inventory  of  the  bonds  between  what  may  happen 
to  him  and  what  his  neurones  will  do  in  the  way  of  action  pro- 
ductive of  excitement,  calm,  elation,  depression,  tenderness, 
fear  and  the  like.  But  practically,  although  more  attention 
has  been  given  by  psychologists  to  the  latter  than  to  the  former 
division  of  man's  instinctive  equipment,  such  an  inventory  is 
very  unsatisfactory.  Since  some  of  the  reasons  for  its  un- 
satisfactoriness  are  bound  up  with  the  general  problem  of  the 
nature  and  original  status  of  the  neurone-actions  concerned,  the 
concrete  problem  of  a  detailed  inventory  may  be  held  over 
until  certain  facts  about  the  general  problem  have  been 
reviewed. 

The  neurone  actions  concerned  with  the  emotions  have  been 

150 

\ 


THE   EMOTIONS   AND  THEIR   EXPRESSION  I51 

asserted  by  James  ['93,  Chapter  XXV]*  and  Lange  ['85]  to 
be  in  large  measure  secondary  results  of  bodily  disturbances 
outside  the  brain.  Such  bodily  responses  as  the  secretion  of 
tears,  the  rush  of  blood  to  the  head,  or  the  fluttering  of  the 
heart  are  supposed  by  the  James-Lange  theory  to  react  upon 
the  neurones  to  produce  conditions  in  them  which,  in  part,  ac- 
count for  tender,  angry  and  fearsome  feelings.f 

Opponents  of  the  James-Lange  theory,  so  far  as  they  are 
clear  about  the  neurone-actions  to  which  original  emotional 
states  of  consciousness  are  due,  maintain  that  they  may  be 
caused  directly  by  the  situation — sensed  object  or  thought-of 
fact — ^without  the  arousal  beforehand  of  any  response  outside 
the  brain.      This  conflict  of  opinions  remains  unsettled. 

The  significance  of  this  disagreement  for  us  lies  in  the 
proof  it  g^ves  that  almost  nothing  is  known  of  the  neurone- 
action  concerned  in  producing  any  emotion.  If  men  knew 
what  the  neurone-action  was  in  any  case,  they  could  easily 
decide  experimentally  whether,  in  that  case,  it  did  or  did  not 
have  a  certain  condition  outside  of  the  brain  as  its  antecedent. 
As  it  is,  they  can  only  call  such  the  x  producing  fear,  the  y 
producing  tenderness,  or  the  z  producing  elation. 

But  the  fear,  tenderness  or  elation  itself  is  definable  only 
as  that  which  a  man  feels  when  he  is  in  certain  situations  or 
as  that  which  a  man  feels  when  he  makes  certain  responses. 
In  spite  of  thousands  of  pages  of  introspective  analysis  we  are 
always  brought  around  in  the  end  to  the  statement  that,  say, 
fear  is  'what  I  experience  when  something  is  there,  which  other 
men  or  I,  myself,  would  say  caused  me  to  fear,*  or  *what  I  expe- 

*The  theory  described  here  was  first  broached  by  James  in  an  article 
published  in  Mind,  in  1884,  and  by  Lange  independently  in  "85.  James' 
discussion  is  repeated  in  Chapter  XXV  of  the  Principles  of  Psychology. 
Lange's  discussion  is  available  in  the  translation  by  H.  Kurclla  r87], 
entitled  Uebcr  Gemiithsbewegungen.  Kurella  does  not  give  the  title  of  the 
Danish  original. 

tFor  a  conservative  account  of  what  little  is  known  of  the  internal 
bodily  conditions  which  go  with,  and  perhaps  are  the  causes  of,  certain 
<x)nditions  of  the  neurones  productive  of  the  feelings  of  excitement,  anx- 
iety, anger  and  the  like,  sec  Ladd  and  Woodworth  ('11,  pp.  500-528]. 


152  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

rience  when  I  honestly  report  myself  in  words  to  be  in  terror, 
or  make  some  grosser  response  to  the  same  effect/ 

This  definition  or  identification  of  an  inner  conscious  emd- 
tional  state  as  the  unknown  quantity  of  an  unknown  stuff  that 
is  produced  by  a  certain  situation  or  evidenced  by  a  certain 
response  may,  of  course,  be  delayed  by  comparing  and  con- 
trasting the  unknown  with  other  unknowns  of  the  same  class. 
Thus  fear  may  be  defined  as  a  shocking,  depressed  state  of 
mind,  or  as  the  opposite  of  confidence  and  courage,  or  as 
more  like  grief  than  anger  is.  But  a  demand  for  identifica- 
tion of  these  means  of  definition  themselves  leads  finally  always 
to  the  provoking  situation  or  the  attendant  response. 

So  in  a  circle  one  goes  from  objective  situation  to  objective 
response  without  laying  one's  grasp  on  anything  to  think  about 
as  fear,  or  tenderness,  or  elation,  save  the  state  of  mind  one  has 
as  a  sequent  of  a  certain  situation  or  as  a  precursor  of  a  certain 
response. 

Just  as  the  neurone-action  productive  of  fear  is  the  x,  pro- 
ducing fear,  so  fear  is  the  Xx  produced  by  such  and  such  situa- 
tions or  the  X2.  productive  of  such  and  such  verbal  report  or 
grosser  response.  If  a  thousand  men  of  science  had  observed 
all  the  millions  of  cases  of  this  inner  fear  that  have  happened  in 
the  last  ten  years,  they  would  still  be  unable  to  do  any  more 
with  it  than  to  define  the  objective  conditions  and  consequences 
of  its  appearance.  The  cavalier  treatment  accorded  to  these 
states  of  consciousness  and  to  the  conditions  in  the  brain  to 
which  they  are  due,  in  the  case  of  fear  and  anger,  and  their 
total  neglect  in  the  case  of  curiosity,  play,  mastery  and  submis- 
sion, motherly  behavior,  kindliness  and  other  original  tenden- 
cies, is  then  in  part  justifiable.* 

*The  reader  who  has  accepted  the  verbal  assertions  of  the  traditional 
analytic  psychology  at  their  face  value  may  suspect  that  I  have  been 
unfair  in  reducing  the  traditional  descriptions  of  'emotions*  to  compar- 
isons or  contrasts  inter  se  and  to  references  to  the  situations  which  cause 
them  or  the  varieties  of  bodily  behavior  which  accompany  them.  He 
may  retain  a  conviction  that  some  direct  apprehension  of  the  nature  of 


THE   EMOTIONS    AND   THEIR    EXPRESSION  I53 

It  would,  perhaps,  not  be  wholly  justifiable.  For  what  a 
man  reports  as  his  emotions  are  signs  of  the  existence  of  neu- 
rone-actions which,  though  unknown  so  far  as  concerns  their 
own  make-up,  are  known,  so  far  as  concerns  their  connections 
and  their  meaning.  The  less  easily  observable  effects  on  the 
brain  productive  of  the  states  of  consciousness  called  emotions 
can  enter  into  connection  with  other  facts,  serve  as  intermedi- 
ate links  between  a  situation  and  further  responses  to  it,  and 
become  themselves  situations  to  which  responses  are  bound. 
They,  or  the  feelings  going  with  them,  can  lead  to  attitudes 
and  actions  toward  situations — can  stand  for  or  'mean'  various 
states  of  affairs.  Just  as  the  sound,  heard  or  imagined,  of  the 
word  'run'  can  represent  or  mean  certain  facts,  so  the  feelings 
of  fear  can  represent  certain  facts — certain  attitudes  and  possi- 
bilities of  the  man's  behavior.  The  less  easily  observable  ef- 
fects of  situations  on  the  brain,  whether  they  parallel  so-called 
sensations  or  so-called  emotions,  serve  as  means  of  connection 
and  have  representative  value.  Suppose,  for  example,  that 
when  I  think  I  have  lost  a  thousand-dollar  bill,  there  occurs  a 
'less  easily  observable  effect  in  my  brain'  producing  the  same 
feeling  that  was  a  part  of  my  condition  when  clutched  by  the 
neck  in  the  dark,  but  without  the  bodily  start,  jump  and 
trembling.  This  'less  easily  observable  effect  on  my  brain'  may 
connect  with  its  former  associates,  leading  me  to  call  my  pres- 
ent condition  by  the  same  name  as  that  given  the  previous  total 
condition  by  those  around  me :  it  may  connect  with  associates 
of  all  sorts  leading  me  to  regard  whatever  causes  it  as  'fearful* 
or  'dangerous,' 

Just  as  the  fact  that  the  Mess  easily  observable  effects  on 
the  brain'  due  to  light  vibrations  of  different  wave-lengths  are 
different,  gives  a  means  of  convenient  ordering  and  planful 
representation  of  certain  facts  of  nature,  so  the  fact  that  the 
'less  easily  observable  effects  of  the  brain'  of  jumping  tigers, 

the  feeling  of  fear  or  anger  or  scom  is  possessed  and  communicated  by 
psychologists.  This  conviction  can  hardly  remain  in  any  matter-of-fact 
student  who  will  re-read  the  descriptions  written  by  experts  in  such 
supposedly  direct  apprehension  of  conicious  states. 


154  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

of  wailing  babies,  and  of  scornful  looks  are  different,  gives  a 
means  of  convenient  ordering  and  planful  representation  of 
certain  other  facts  of  nature. 

The  amount  of  value  of  the  'emotions'  as  centers  of  con- 
nections or  carriers  of  meaning  is  of  course  far  less  than  that 
of  'sensations,'  but  they  possess  the  possibility  of  the  same 
sort  of  value.  Since  the  use  of  the  emotions  in  this  way  is 
chiefly  a  matter  of  acquisition,  further  discussion  of  this  topic 
belongs  to  a  later  volume  on  the  Psychology  of  Learning. 

mcdougall's  inventory  of  original  tendencies  to 
emotional  states 

I  am  unable  to  satisfy  myself  which  particular  :r's,  ^^'s  and 
s's  of  the  emotional  states  would,  by  original  nature,  appear  in 
response  to  the  concrete  particular  situations  of  life  so  as  to 
give  an  inventory  of  original  bonds  in  this  field  that  seems 
suitable  to  the  purposes  of  this  volume.  For  the  sake  of  those 
who  feel  that  they  know  just  what  inner  states  are  meant  by 
the  words  *fear,'  'wonder,'  'tender  emotion,'  and  the  like,  the 
inventory  of  McDougall — an  able  psychologist  who  is  specially 
attentive  to  just  this  problem — is  summarized  here,  though  to 
me  it  seems  to  make  little  advance  beyond  common  knowledge 
toward  prophecy  of  what  men  will  feel  apart  from  training. 

McDougall  finds  that  the  original  responses  of  inner  emo- 
tional states  are  seven  in  number — fear,  disgust,  wonder,  anger, 
subjection  or  negative  self-feeling,  elation  or  positive  self- 
feeling,  and  tender  emotion.  "From  these  seven  primary  emo- 
tions together  with  feelings  of  pleasure  and  pain  (and  per- 
haps also  feelings  of  excitement  and  of  depression)  are  com- 
pounded all,  or  almost  all,  the  affective  states  that  are  popularly 
recognized  as  emotions,  and  for  which  human  speech  has  defi- 
nite names"  ['08,  p.  81  f.]. 

The  situations  which  originally  provoke  these  seven  re- 
sponses are: — 

For  fear. — "A  variety  of  objects  and  sense  impressions," 


THE   EMOTIONS   AND   THEIR   EXPRESSION  1 55 

which  in  the  case  of  man  "it  is  difficult  to  discover."  "In 
most  young  children  .  .  .  any  sudden  loud  noise  .  ,  .  and 
all  through  life  such  noise  remains  for  many  of  us  the  surest 
and  most  frequent  excitant  of  the  instinct."  "Other  children, 
while  still  in  arms  show  fear  if  held  too  loosely  when  carried 
downstairs,  or  if  the  arms  that  hold  them  are  suddenly  low- 
ered. In  some,  intense  fear  is  excited  on  their  first  introduc- 
tion at  close  quarters  to  a  dog  or  cat,  no  matter  how  quiet 
and  well-behaved  the  animal  may  be;  and  some  of  us  continue 
all  through  life  to  experience  a  little  thrill  of  fear  whenever 
a  dog  runs  out  and  barks  at  our  heels,  though  we  may  never 
have  received  any  hurt  from  an  animal  and  may  have  perfect 
confidence  that  no  hurt  is  likely  to  be  done  us.  .  .  .  In 
other  persons,  again,  fear  is  excited  by  the  noise  of  a  high 
wind,  and  though  they  may  be  in  a  solidly  built  house  that  has 
weathered  a  hundred  storms,  they  will  walk  restlessly  to  and 
fro  throughout  every  stormy  night  ...  Of  all  the  excitants 
of  this  instinct  the  most  interesting,  and  the  most  difficult  to 
understand  as  regards  its  mode  of  operation,  is  the  unfamiliar 
or  strange  as  such.  Whatever  is  totally  strange,  whatever  is 
violently  opposed  to  the  accustomed  and  familiar,  is  apt  to 
excite  fear  both  in  men  and  animals,  if  only  it  is  capable  of  at- 
tracting their  attention." 

For  disgust. — "Substances  that  excite  the  instinct  in  virtue 
of  their  odor  or  taste,  substances  which  in  the  main  are 
noxious  and  evil-tasting"  and  "the  contact  of  slimy  and  slip- 
pery substances  with  the  skin." 

For  wonder. — "Any  object  similar  to,  yet  perceptibly 
different  from,  familiar  objects  habitually  noticed." 

For  anger. — "It  has  no  specific  object  or  objects  the  per- 
ception of  which"  provokes  it.  The  situation  which  originally 
arouses  it  is  "any  obstruction  to  the  activity  to  which  the 
creature  is  impelled  by  any  of  the  other  instincts." 

For  elation  or  positive  self-feeling. — This  "is  only  brought 
into  play  by  the  presence  of  spectators."  "The  situation  that 
more  particularly  excites  this  instinct  is  the  presence  of  specta- 
tors to  whom  one  feels  oneself  for  any  reason,  or  in  any  way, 
superior." 

For  subjection  or  negative  self-feeling. — McDougall  does 
not  state  what  the  stimulus  is.  but  by  inference  it  would  be  the 
presence  of  spectators  to  whom  one  feels  inferior. 

For  tender  emotion. — "The  child's  expression  of  pain,  fear. 


156  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

or  distress  of  any  kind,  especially  the  child's  cry  of  distress; 
further  ...  the  cry,  not  only  of  one's  own  offspring,  but 
of  any  child."  By  association  by  similarity,  other  objects  such 
as  a  happy  but  frail  child,  "any  very  young  animal  especially 
if  in  distress,"  and  the  like  may  directly  arouse  this  response. 
When  a  situation  contains  elements  which  arouse  two  or 
more  of  these  primary  responses  the  two  or  more  compound  to 
become  "mixed,  secondary  or  complex  emotions."  "The  great 
variety  of  our  emotional  states  may  be  properly  regarded  as  the 
compounding  of"  these  seven  primary  responses.  This  is 
"largely,  though  not  wholly  due  to  the  existence  of  sentiments," 
a  sentiment  being  an  "organized  system  of  emotional  ten- 
dencies centered  about  some  object."  "Since  the  primary  emo- 
tions may  be  combined  iji  a  large  number  of  different  ways, 
and  since  the  primaries  that  enter  into  the  composition  of  a  sec- 
ondary emotion  may  be  present  in  any  different  degrees  of 
intensity,  the  whole  range  of  complex  emotions  presents  an 
indefinitely  large  number  of  qualities  that  shade  imperceptibly 
into  one  another  without  sharp  dividing  lines.  The  names 
provided  by  common  speech  designate  merely  a  certain  limited 
number  of  the  most  prominent  of  these  complexes." 

Admiration  is  essentially  a  compound  of  "wonder  and 
negative  self-feeling  or  the  emotion  of  submission"  and  so 
should  be  excited  originally  by  "any  object  similar  to,  yet 
perceptibly  different  from,  familiar  objects  habitually  noticed" 
when  other  human  beings  to  whom  one  felt  oneself  inferior 
were  present. 

Gratitude  "is  a  binary  compound  of  tender  emotion  and 
negative  feeling"  and  so  should  be  originally  the  emotional  re- 
sponse to  a  "child's  expression  of  pain,  fear  or  distress  of  any 
kind"  when  other  human  beings  to  whom  one  felt  oneself  in- 
ferior were  present. 

Scorn  is  a  compound  of  disgust  and  anger  ("when  an  object 
excites  our  disgust,  and  at  the  same  time  our  anger,  the  emo- 
tion we  experience  is  scorn"),  and  so  should  be  the  original 
response  to  "substances  that  excite  the  instinct  in  virtue  of 
their  odour  or  taste"  and  "the  contact  of  slimy  and  slippery 
substances  with  the  skin"  provided  that  there  is  "any  obstruc- 
tion to  the  activity  to  which  the  creature  is  impelled  by  any 
of  the  other  instincts." 

Loathing  is  a  compound  of  disgust  and  fear  and  so  should 
be  the  original  response  to  a  situation  like  that  just  described. 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR   EXPRESSION  157 

but  with  the  second  feature  replaced  by  a  "sudden  loud  noise," 
"a  high  wind,"  "the  unfamiliar  or  strange  as  such,"  or  the 
like. 

In  the  case  of  Envy  McDoug^ll  "would  suggest  that  it  is  a 
binary  compound  of  negative  self-feeling  (that  is,  subjection) 
and  of  anger."  He  apparently  judges  that  a  certain  amount 
of  reflective  consideration  is  necessary  to  the  production  of 
envy,  so  that  he  would  perhaps  not  claim  that  the  sheer  pres- 
ence of  spectators  to  whom  one  feels  inferior  plus  an  obstruc- 
tion to  our  own  activity  would  evoke  envy. 

Reproach  "seems  to  be  a  fusion  of  anger  and  of  tender 
emotion." 

Anxiety  is  anticipatory  pain  mingled  with  tender  emotion. 

Jealousy  is  a  compound  of  anger  and  tender  emotion  under 
some  painful  check. 

Vengeful  emotion  is  essentially  a  fusion  of  anger  and 
wounded  self- feeling. 

Bashfulness  is  a  compopnd  of  elation  and  subjection,  but 
"a  struggle  rather  than  a  fusion." 

Shame  "is  bashfulness  qualified  by  the  pain  of  baffled  positive 
self-feeling  {i.  e.,  elation),  whose  impulse  is  strong  and  persist- 
ent owing  to  the  fact  that  the  emotion  is  excited  within  the 
system  of  the  self-regarding  sentiment." 

THE   RELATION  OF   EMOTIONS   TO   THE   MOVEMENTS   WHICH 
EXPRESS    THEM 

The  emotions  (or  the  hidden  conditions  of  the  organism 
paralleling  the  emotions)  have  a  further  interest  in  connection 
with  the  origin  of  the  customary  and  misleading  psychology 
of  certain  instincts.  Since  these  internal  responses  of  the 
brain  itself  are,  for  others  than  the  one  making  them,  hard  to 
observe,  reward  and  punish,  they  have  to  be  controlled  indi- 
rectly by  rewarding  or  punishing  the  obvious  bodily  conditions 
with  which  they  are  commonly  found.  As  a  result,  they  may 
stay  as  fairly  stable  cores  in  the  total  responses  of  fear,  anger, 
or  disgust,  while  the  more  obvious  running,  hiding,  striking, 
biting,  spitting  and  shrinking  are  omitted  or  variously  modified. 
Thus  arose  the  traditional,  but  perverse,  description  of  such 


158  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAK" 

sorts  of  behavior  as  'states  of  consciousness  which  are  ex- 
pressed by  bodily  activities/  The  original  nature  of  man  is 
pictured  as  a  set  of  tendencies  for  various  situations  to  arouse, 
first  in  time  and  first  in  importance,  the  feelings — fear,  anger, 
disgust,  interest,  pity,  love,  and  th<e  like.  Each  of  these  feel- 
ings then  receives  by  heredity,  or  seeks  out  more  or  less  mirac- 
ulously, certain  bodily  movements  to  go  with  it.  The  service 
of  these  movements  is  to  express  or  make  known  the  existence 
of  their  respective  feelings. 

This  description  is  perverse  through  and  through.  The 
arousal  of  the  feelings  of  fear,  anger  and  the  like  is  first 
(neither  in  time  nor  in  importance.  The  more  observable  bod- 
jily  movements  do  not  come  as  expressions  of  them,  but  as  re- 
f  spouses  toward  the  outside  situation  that  started  the  behavior- 
series  in  question.  The  service  of  the  bodily  movements  of 
facial  expression,  cries,  tears  and  the  like  is  to  make  a  differ- 
ence in  the  behavior  of  other  men,  or  occasionally  of  other 
animals,  or  in  the  responding  person  himself.  In  the  course 
of  the  modification  of  the  behavior  of  the  other  human  beings 
who  witness  the  cries,  tears,  etc.,  they  may  think  of  the  con- 
scious state  of  the  waller,  but  that  is  a  secondary  by-product  of 
the  process. 

The  error  just  described  has  been  extended,  though  at  the 
same  time  softened  by  vagueness,  in  the  doctrine  of  a  general 
Instinct  of  Self-expression.  Kirkpatrick  ['03,  Chapter  XIII] 
has  affirmed  definitely,  what  doubtless  many  students  of  human 
nature  are  inclined  to  believe,  that  man  originally  expresses 
his  mental  states  to  others  of  the  same  species  and  takes  pleas- 
ure in  doing  so.  This  is  a  misleading  statement.  It  is  true 
that  many  conditions  in  a  human  being,  such  as  hunger,  bodily 
pain  or  disgust,  are  connected  with  facial  movements,  cries  and 
gestures  which  an  experienced  human  being  can  interpret  and 
to  which  an  inexperienced  human  being  responds  adaptively. 
I  But  it  is  not  true  that  there  is  a  general  tendency  to  so  reveal 
any  mental  state  whatsoever.  Love  affairs  are  concealed. 
Shy  behavior  conceals  in  part  whatever  fear,  affection,  hatred- 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR   EXPRESSION  159 

or  disgust  may  be  present.  The  trembling  and  paralysis  of 
fear  may  *conceal'  an  intense  desire  to  run  away.  Whether 
one  sees  colors  normally  or  as  the  color-blind  do,  whether  one 
is  thinking  of  six  or  sixteen,  in  fact  the  great  majority  of  in- 
dividual peculiarities  in  perception  and  thought  which  make  up 
perhaps  nine-tenths  of  human  mental  states  today,  are  not,  by 
original  naturq,  expressed  at  all  save  in  alterations  of  the 
neurones  unseen  by  others  of  the  same  species. 

Common  as  is  the  tendency  to  speak  out  what  is  in  one's 
mind,  it  can  be  explained  as  the  result  of  learned  habits  initiated 
by  the  instinct  of  vocalization  and  selected  by  reason  of  their 
ulterior  satisfyingness.  Man  talks  in  order  to  get  the  satis- 
faction of  mental  control,  material  favors,  notice,  approval  and 
other  goods,  quite  irrespective  of  spreading  information  about 
himself.  A  little  later  he  talks  to  himself  or  aloud  partly  also 
in  order  to  think.  Let  the  others  of  the  same  species  refuse 
his  verbal  requests,  scorn  his  autobiography  and  let  his  mus- 
ings grow  richer  and  more  fluent  when  made  silently,  and  he 
becomes  taciturn. 

What  original  human  nature  shows  is  not  a  general  ten- 
dency to  self-revelation,  but  a  multitude  of  special  responses 
by  facial  movements,  gestures,  cries  and  gross  bodily  move- 
ments which  act  as  potent  situations  to  evoke  attention  and 
various  adaptive  responses  from  others  of  the  species.  These 
responses  by  the  others  are  not  simply  awarenesses  of  the  state 
of  mind  of  the  first  party.  They  vary  according  to  whether 
the  second  party  has  the  mothering,  friendly,  mastering,  sub- 
missive or  other  tendency  acting  at  the  same  time.  Nor  are 
they  primarily  awarenesses  of  the  first  party's  states  of  mind. 
On  the  contrary  the  primary  thing  is  to  chase  the  foe  who  flees, 
to  cuddle  the  infant  who  wails.  So  mammals  and  birds,  who 
show  no  signs  of  a  general  appreciation  of  the  states  of  mind 
of  their  kind,  yet  respond  adaptively  to  them.*     The  so-called 

♦Craig  has  found  that  the  instinctive  uses  of  the  voice  by  pigeons  are 
potent  means  of  social  control ;  Ordahl  notes  in  the  case  of  the  feeding 
of  young  that,  "with  all  the  birds  obser>'ed,  the  ones  that  calUd  the  loud- 
est and  nK>st  frequently  got  the  most  food."     ['08,  p.  494.] 


l6o  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

expressive  movements  are  of  great  importance  as  means  of 
social  cooperation  and  control,  but,  apart  from  learning,  they 
act  by  provoking  motor  responses  directly,  not  by  exciting 
awarenesses  of  the  mental  states  of  others. 

THE    ORIGINAL    BONDS    OF    THE    EXPRESSIVE    MOVEMENTS 

Some  of  these  special  responses  by  facial  movements  and 
cries,  such  as  the  scowl  and  snarl  of  angry  behavior,  the  up- 
turned nose  of  disgust,  the  stare  of  attempted  mastery,  the 
averted  glance  at  the  sight  of  a  fearful  object,  the  cooing  of 
motherly  behavior  and  the  lowered  eyes  of  submission,  have 
been  set  forth  in  connection  with  their  several  situations.  But 
in  the  case  of  others,  including  some  of  the  most  notable,  it 
is  very  hard  to  discover  to  what  situations  they  are  by  original 
nature  bound.  We  do  not  know  just  what  situations  originally 
provoke  smiling,  laughing,  crying,  weeping,  blushing,  frown- 
ing, and  pouting,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  responses 
have  been  made  the  subject  of  investigation  by  Darwin  ['72] 
and  by  many  able  and  industrious  students  following  him. 

Since  these  problems  are  of  comparatively  little  moment  to 
our  general  purpose,  it  will  be  best  to  spend  the  space  that  is 
available  in  illustrating  the  treatment  of  one  of  them  rather 
than  in  a  necessarily  superficial  and  dogmatic  rehearsal  of  the 
probable  answers  to  them  all.  For  this  purpose  I  choose 
Laughing. 

Darwin's  description  of  the  nature  of  this  response  is  the 
most  instructive  for  quotation.     He  says: 

"The  sound  of  laughter  is  produced  by  a  deep  inspiration 
followed  by  short,  interrupted,  spasmodic  contractions  of  the 
chest,  and  especially  of  the  diaphragm.  Hence  we  hear  of 
'laughter  holding  both  his  sides.'  From  the  shaking  of  the 
body,  the  head  nods  to  and  fro.  The  lower  jaw  often  quivers 
up  and  down,  as  is  likewise  the  case  with  some  species  of  bab- 
oons, when  they  are  much  pleased. 

During  laughter  the  mouth  is  opened  more  or  less  widely, 
with  the  corners  drawn  much  backwards,  as  well  as  a  little 
upwards;  and  the  upper  lip  is  somewhat  raised.     The  draw- 


THE  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR   EXPRESSION  l6l 

ing  back  of  the  corners  is  best  seen  in  moderate  laughter,  and 
especially  in  a  broad  smile — ^the  latter  epithet  showing  how 
the  mouth  is  widened,  .  .  .  Dr.  Duchenne  repeatedly  insists 
that,  under  the  emotion  of  joy,  the  mouth  is  acted  on  exclusively 
by  the  great  zygomatic  muscles,  which  serve  to  draw  the  cor- 
ners backwards  and  upwards;  but  judging  from  the  manner 
in  which  the  upper  teeth  are  always  exposed  during  laughter 
and  broad  smiling,  as  well  as  from  my  owit  sensations,  I  cannot 
doubt  that  some  of  the  muscles  running  to  the  upper  lip  are 
likewise  brought  into  moderate  action.   .    .    . 

By  the  drawing  backwards  and  upwards  of  the  corners  of 
the  mouth,  through  the  contraction  of  the  great  zygomatic  mus- 
cles, and  by  the  raising  of  the  upper  lip,  the  cheeks  are 
drawn  upwards.  Wrinkles  are  thus  formed  under  the  eyes, 
and,  with  old  people,  at  their  outer  ends;  and  these  are  highly 
characteristic  of  laughter  or  smiling.  As  a  gentle  smile  in- 
creases into  a  strong  one,  or  into  a  laugh,  every  one  may  feel 
and  see,  if  he  will  attend  to  his  own  sensations  and  look  at 
himself  in  a  mirror,  that  as  the  upper  lip  is  drawn  up  and  the 
lower  orbiculars  contract,  the  wrinkles  in  the  lower  eyelids  and 
those  beneath  the  eyes  are  much  strengthened  or  increased.  At 
the  same  time,  as  I  have  repeatedly  observed,  the  eyebrows 
are  slightly  lowered,  which  shows  that  the  upper  as  well 
as  the  lower  orbiculars  contract  at  least  to  some  degree, 
though  this  passes  unperceived,  as  far  as  our  sensations  are 
concerned.   .    .    . 

The  tendency  in  the  zygomatic  muscles  to  contract  under 
pleasurable  emotions  is  shown  by  a  curious  fact,  communicated 
to  me  by  Dr.  Browne,  with  respect  to  patients  suffering  from 
general  paralysis  of  the  insane.  *In  this  malady  there  is  almost 
invariably  optimism — delusions  as  to  wealth,  rank,  grandeur — 
insane  joyousness,  benevolence,  and  profusion,  while  its  very 
earliest  physical  symptom  is  trembling  at  the  comers  of  the 
mouth  and  at  the  outer  comers  of  the  eyes.  This  is  a  well- 
recognized  fact.  Constant  tremulous  ag^'tation  of  the  inferior 
palpebral  and  great  zygomatic  muscles  is  pathognomic  of  the 
earlier  stages  of  general  paralysis.  The  countenance  has  a 
pleased  and  benevolent  expression.  As  the  disease  advances 
other  muscles  become  involved,  but  until  complete  fatuity  is 
reached,  the  prevailing  expression  is  that  of  feeble  benevolence.' 

As  in  laughing  and  broadly  smiling  the  cheeks  and  upper 
lip  are  much  raised,  the  nose  appears  to  be  shortened,  and  the 
skin  on  the  bridge  becomes  finely  wrinkled  in  transverse  lines, 


1 62  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE    OF    MAN 

with  Other  obHque  longitudinal  lines  on  the  sides.  The  upper 
front  teeth  are  commonly  exposed.  A  well-marked  naso-labial 
fold  is  formed,  which  runs  from  the  wing  of  each  nostril  to  the 
corner  of  the  mouth ;  and  this  fold  is  often  double  in  old  persons. 

A  bright  and  sparkling  eye  is  as  characteristic  of  a  pleased 
or  amused  state  of  mind  as  is  the  retraction  of  the  corners  of 
the  mouth  and  upper  lip  with  the  wrinkles  thus  produced. 
Even  the  eyes  of  microcephalous  idiots,  who  are  so  degraded 
that  they  never  learn  to  speak,  brighten  slightly  when  they  are 
pleased.  Under  extreme  laughter  the  eyes  are  too  much  suf- 
fused with  tears  to  sparkle;  but  the  moisture  squeezed  out  of 
the  glands  during  moderate  laughter  or  smiling  may  aid  in 
giving  them  lustre ;  though  this  must  be  of  altogether  subordin- 
ate importance,  as  they  become  dull  from  grief,  though  they 
are  then  often  moist.  Their  brightness  seems  to  be  chiefly  due 
to  their  tenseness,  owing  to  the  contraction  of  the  orbicular 
muscles  and  to  the  pressure  of  the  raised  cheeks.  But,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Piderit,  who  has  discussed  this  point  more  fully  than 
any  other  writer,  the  tenseness  may  be  largely  attributed  to 
the  eyeballs  becoming  filled  with  blood  and  other  fluids,  from 
the  acceleration  of  the  circulation,  consequent  on  the  excitement 
of  pleasure.    ,    .    . 

A  graduated  series  can  be  followed  from  violent  to  moderate 
laughter,  to  a  broad  smile,  to  a  gentle  smile,  and  to  the  ex- 
pression of  mere  cheerfulness.  During  excessive  laughter  the 
whole  body  is  often  thrown  backward  and  shakes,  or  is  almost 
convulsed ;  the  respiration  is  much  disturbed ;  the  head  and  face 
become  gorged  with  blood,  with  the  veins  distended ;  and  the 
orbicular  muscles  are  spasmodically  contracted  in  order  to 
protect  the  eyes.   ... 

Excessive  laughter,  as  before  remarked,  graduates  into 
moderate  laughter.  In  this  latter  case  the  muscles  round  the 
eyes  are  much  less  contracted,  and  there  is  little  or  no  frowning. 
Between  a  gentle  laugh  and  a  broad  smile  there  is  hardly  any 
difference,  excepting  that  in  smiling  no  reiterated  sound  is 
uttered,  though  a  single  rather  strong  expiration,  or  slight  noise 
— a  rudiment  of  a  laugh — may  often  be  heard  at  the  commence<- 
ment  of  a  smile.  On  a  moderate  smijing  countenance  the  con- 
traction of  the  upper  orbicular  muscles  can  still  just  be  traced 
by  a  slight  lowering  of  the  eyebrows.  The  contraction  of  the 
lower  orbicular  and  palpebral  muscles  is  much  plainer,  and 
is  shown  by  the  wrinkling  of  the  lower  eyelids  and  of  the  skin 
beneath  them,  together  with  a  slight  drawing  up  of  the  upper 


THE  EMOTIONS   AND   'HIEIR   EXPRESSION  163 

lip.  From  the  broadest  smile  we  pass  by  the  finest  steps  into 
the  gentlest  one.  In  this  latter  ca^^^ne  features  are  moved  in  a 
much  less  degree,  ancr~»iucll  Tnore  slowly,  and  the  mouth  is 
kept  closed.  The  curvature  of  the  naso-labial  furrow  is  also 
slightly  different  in  the  two  cases.  We  thus  see  that  no  abrupt 
line  of  demarcation  can  be  drawn  between  the  movement  of  the 
features  during  the  most  violent  laughter  and  a  very  faint 
smile."     ['72,  pp.  200-208,  passim.] 

Hall  and  Allin  ['97]  emphasize  the  variations  that  may  oc- 
cur in  the  detailed  nature,  relative  intensity  and  order  of  ap- 
pearance of  the  brightening  of  the  eyes,  drawing  up  and  back 
of  the  corners  of  the  mouth,  opening  of  the  mouth,  repeated 
brief  contractions  of  the  muscles  of  the  chest  and  diaphragm 
and  vocalization  which  are  the  essentials  of  natural  laughter. 
Thus : — 

"In  our  returns  laughter  began  in  71  cases  with  the  eyes, 
and  in  51  cases  with  the  mouth.  The  eyes  are  said  to  grow 
bright,  glitter,  sparkle  (involving  a  tension  of  all  the  muscles 
of  the  bulbus),  to  twinkle  (rapid  lid  movements),  to  dance  (ir- 
regular or  oscillatory  movements  of  the  recti),  the  mouth 
stretches,  corners  are  drawn  upward  or  sometimes  downward, 
very  often  twitch  or  quiver.  The  mouth  commonly  opens,  ex- 
cept in  the  simper,  when  it  is  nearly  or  quite  closed.  The  lips 
are  said  to  curl.  In  a  few  cases  the  laugh  begins  with  dimples 
in  the  cheeks,  and  in  others  the  muscles  just  below  the  ear 
move.  In  still  other  cases  the  first  symptom  is  the  throwing 
back  of  the  head,  and  in  others  a  snort  or  chuckle.  Of  the 
body  movements  about  two-thirds  assert  that  the  shoulders, 
and  one-third  that  the  diaphragm,  first  move.    ..." 

"The  vocal  expressions  of  laughter  are  extremely  diverse. 
The  sound  most  generally  emitted  is  described  as  he,  he,  passing 
over  to  ha.  ha.  But  almost  every  kind  of  noise  occurs.  F., 
17.  Is  said  to  "bray  somewhat  like  a  donkey."  F.,  15. 
"Cackles."  M.,  28.  Makes  a  loud  guttural  "yock."  M., 
10.  Laughs  "somewhat  like  a  rooster."  M.,  21.  "Snorts." 
F.,  15.  "Grunts  like  a  pig."  F..  20.  Laughs  without  vocal- 
ization, but  with  a  noise  like  the  emission  of  steam.  The  laugh 
of  Chinamen  is  descril)ed  as  a  chattering  sound.  One  laughs 
"deep  down  in  his  chest;"  another  "laughs  up  among  his 
teeth ;"  another  is  said  to  have  a  laugh  which  is  said  to  be  like 
a    *'fog   horn;"   another   "rumbles."      F,    17.      "Yells   and 


164  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OP    MAN 

shridcs."  F.,  10.  Laughs  with  a  "simmering  laugh." 
M.,  16.  With  an  "explosive  staccato  sound."  Some  make  no 
noise  at  all,  others  sob  or  make  a  noise  that  seems  like  crying. 
Some  are  said  to  snarl,  others  make  a  very  soft  te-he,  others  a 
loud  ho,  ho,  three  are  s^id  to  "neigh  like  a  horse,"  some  only 
gasp,  some  laugh  in  a  very  high,  some  in  a  low  key,  some  make 
noises  said  to  be  indescribable  or  between  a  laugh  and  a  cry. 
Every  vowel  and  most  consonants  are  used  in  our  returns  in 
efforts  to  describe  noises.  Some  "laugh  like  parrots,  crows, 
peacocks,  sheep,  goats;"  some  make  a  "scraping,  rasping, 
throaty  noise,"  and  some  a  very  musical  tone;  some  go  up  and 
some  go  down  the  scale.  Other  laughs  are  described  as  "tse, 
tse;  uckle-uckle;  hep,  hep;  haw-haw,  wah,  wah;  iff,  iff;  hickle, 
hickle;  kee,  kee;  gah,  gah."     ['97,  pp.  4-6,  passim.] 

The  need  of  impartial  observation  and  experiment  to  dis- 
cover just  what  the  original  nature  of  man  is  finds  brilliant 
illustration  in  the  case  of  laughing.  No  one  knows  with  surety 
what  man  would  laugh  at  apart  from  training,  although  defi^ 
nitions  and  theories  of  the  laughable  have  been  devised  by 
one  after  another  gifted  student  of  human  nature,  from  Aris- 
totle to  Bergson. 

Indeed,  no  one  of  these  theories  has  succeeded  in  reporting 
what  situations  do  provoke  man  to  laughter  either  by  nature 
or  by  training.  Thus  the  sense  of  superiority  theory — "that 
the  passion  of  laughter  is  nothing  else  but  sudden  glory  arising 
from  sudden  conception  of  some  eminency  in  ourselves,  by 
comparison  with  the  inferiority  of  others  or  our  own  formerly" 
(Hobbes) — fails  to  cover  the  most  important  case  of  all — ^the 
fluent,  semi-conscious  laughter  of  healthy  babies  at  play.  Mr. 
J.  L.  Ford  has  restated  the  *sense  of  superiority*  theory  in  the 
more  cautious  and  more  matter-of-fact  form  that  nine-tenths 
of  the  laughter  of  men  is  at  real  or  acted  or  narrated  disaster  or 
misfortune,  but  the  same  objection  holds. 

The  theory  that  incongruity  between  one's  thought  and 
the  object  or  between  one's  expectation  from  the  situation  and 
its  actual  behavior  is  the  element  to  which  laughter  is  the  re- 
sponse has  been  upheld  in  various  forms  by  Kant,  Schopen- 


THE   EMOTIONS   AND   THEIR    EXPRESSION  165 

hauer,  Spencer  and  others,  the  following  being  representative 
statements : 

"In  the  case  of  jokes  (the  art  of  which,  just  like  music, 
should  rather  be  reckoned  as  pleasant  than  beautiful)  the  play 
begins  with  the  thoughts  which  together  occupy  the  body,  so 
far  as  they  admit  of  sensible  expression ;  and  as  the  Understand- 
ing stops  suddenly  short  at  this  presentment,  in  which  it  does 
not  find  what  it  expected,  we  feel  the  effect  of  this  slackening 
in  the  body  by  the  oscillation  of  the  organs,  which  promotes  the 
restoration  of  equilibrium  and  has  a  favorable  influence  upon 
health. 

In  everything  that  is  to  excite  a  lively  convulsive  laugh 
there  must  be  something  absurd  in  which  the  Understanding, 
therefore,  can  find  no  satisfaction.  Laughter  is  an  aifection 
arising  from  the  sudden  transformation  of  a  strained  expecta- 
tion into  nothing"  [Kant,  Kritik  of  Judgment,  Bernard's 
translation,  §  54,  p.  223.] 

"Just  that  incongruity  of  perceptual  and  abstract  knowl- 
edge ...  is  also  the  basis  of  a  very  noteworthy  phenomenon 
which  ...  is  absolutely  peculiar  to  human  nature  and  for 
which  explanation  after  explanation  has  hitherto  been  attempted 
but  always  unsuccessfully.     I  refer  to  laughter.   .    .    . 

Laughter  arises  always  from  no  other  fact  than  the  imme- 
diately appreciated  incongruity  between  a  notion  and  the  real 
objects  which  were  thought  by  means  of  it,  whatever  the  rela- 
tion be,  and  is  itself  nothing  but  the  expression  of  this  incon- 
gruity. .  .  .  Every  act  of  laughter  arises  therefore  on  the 
occasion  of  a  paradoxical  and  so  unexpected  subsumption,  re- 
gardless of  whether  this  is  expressed  by  words  or  acts.  This 
is  in  brief  the  correct  explanation  of  the  laughable."  [Schopen- 
hauer, Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,  p.  70  of  vol.  2  of 
the  Brockhaus  C77)  edition  of  his  collected  works.] 

Spencer  notes  that  "laughter  often  ocairs  from  extreme 
pleasure  or  from  mere  vivacity"  and  apparently  allows  that  the 
sense  of  superiority  (as  by  the  humiliation  of  others)  is  a  gen- 
eralization of  certain  conditions  to  laughter.  The  incongruity 
theory  he  modifies  to  the  form  that  "laughter  (at  the  incon- 
gruous) naturally  results  only  when  consciousness  is  unawares 
transferred  from  great  things  to  small — only  where  there  is 
what  we  may  call  a  descending  incongruity."    [Essays:  Scien- 


l66  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

Mc,  Political  and  Speculative   (Second   Series),   American 
edition  of  1864,  p.  116.] 

Darwin  was  perhaps  wiser  in  assuming  that  laughter  is  a 
development  from  smiling  and  is  fundamentally  attached  to  the 
same  situations  as  smiling  is,  and  that  these  are  substantially 
identical  with  satisfying  states  of  affairs  in  general. 

**Laughter  seems  primarily  to  be  the  expression  of  mere 
joy  or  happiness.  We  clearly  see  this  in  children  at  play,  who 
are  almost  incessantly  laughing.  With  young  persons  past 
childhood,  when  they  are  in  high  spirits,  there  is  always  much 
meaningless  laughter.  The  laughter  of  the  gods  is  described 
by  Homer  as  "the  exuberance  of  their  celestial  joy  after  their 
daily  banquet."  A  man  smiles — and  smiling,  as  we  shall  see, 
graduates  into  laughter — ^at  meeting  an  old  friend  in  the  street, 
as  he  does  at  any  trifling  pleasure,  such  as  smelling  a  sweet  per- 
fume. Laura  Bridgman,  from  her  blindness  and  deafness, 
could  not  have  acquired  any  expression  through  imitation, 
yet  when  a  letter  from  a  beloved  friend  was  communicated  to 
her  by  gesture-language,  she  "laughed  and  clapped  her  hands, 
and  the  colour  mounted  to  her  cheeks."  On  other  occasions 
she  has  been  seen  to  stamp  for  joy. 

Idiots  and  imbecile  persons  likewise  afford  good  evidence 
that  laughter  or  smiling  primarily  expresses  mere  happiness 
or  joy.  Dr.  Crichton  Browne,  to  whom,  as  on  so  many 
other  occasions,  I  am  indebted  for  the  results  of  his  wide  expe- 
rience, informs  me  that  with  idiots  laughter  is  the  most  preva- 
lent and  frequent  of  all  the  emotional  expressions  .  .  .  The 
joyousness  of  most  of  these  idiots  cannot  possibly  be  associated, 
as  Dr.  Browne  remarks,  with  any  distinct  ideas:  they  simply 
feel  pleasure,  and  express  it  by  laughter  or  smiles.  With  imbe- 
ciles rather  higher  in  the  scale,  personal  vanity  seems  to  be  the 
commonest  cause  of  laughter,  and  next  to  this,  pleasure  arising 
from  the  approbation  of  their  conduct."     ['y2,  p.  196  f.] 

Darwin  also  appreciated  the  need  of  explaining  the  fact  that 
tickling  so  commonly  provokes  laughter — ^a  fact  which  is  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  all  the  grandiose  theories  of  the  comic. 

"The  imagination  is  sometimes  said  to  be  tickled  by  a 
ludicrous  idea ;  and  this  so-called  tickling  of  the  mind  is  curi- 
ously analogous  with  that  of  the  body.  Every  one  knows  how 
immoderately  children  laugh,  and  how  their  whole  bodies  are 


THE   EMOTIONS   AND   THEIR   EXPRESSION  167 

convulsed  when  they  are  tickled.  The  anthropoid  apes,  as  we 
have  seen,  likewise  utter  a  reiterated  sound,  corresponding  with 
our  laughter,  when  they  are  tickled,  especially  under  the  arm- 
pits .  .  .  Yet  laughter  from  a  ludicrous  idea,  though  invol- 
untary, cannot  be  called  a  strictly  reflex  action.  In  this  case, 
and  in  that  of  laughter  from  being  tickled,  the  mind  must  be  in 
a  pleasurable  condition;  a  young  child,  if  tickled  by  a  strange 
man,  would  scream  from  fear.  The  touch  must  be  light,  and 
an  idea  or  event,  to  be  ludicrous,  must  not  be  of  grave  import." 
['72,  p.  I99-] 

Bergson  ['ii*]  declares  that  the  situation  which  pro- 
vokes laughter  must  be  within  the  pale  of  human  behavior  or  at 
least  be  temporarily  so  regarded.  "You  may  laugh  at  an  ani- 
mal, but  only  because  you  have  detected  in  it  some  human  atti- 
tude or  expression.  You  may  laugh  at  a  hat,  but  what  you  are 
making  fun  of,  in  this  case,  is  not  the  piece  of  felt  or  straw, 
but  the  shape  that  men  have  given  it — the  human  caprice  whose 
mould  it  has  assumed  [p.  3].  In  particular  it  is  any  feature 
of  a  man's  behavior  (or  of  the  behavior  of  something  which  is 
for  the  time  being  assimilated  to  man)  which  has  a  certain  un- 
usual and  inappropriate  stiffness  and  lack  of  adjustment — "a 
certain  mechanical  inelasticity,  just  where  one  would  expect 
to  find  the  wideawake  adaptability  and  the  living  pliableness 
of  a  human  being"  [p.  10].  Failure  of  adaptation,  rigidity, 
"the  deflection  of  life  toward  the  mechanical,"  "something  me- 
chanical encrusted  on  the  living,"  "the  body  taking  precedence 
of  the  soul"  are  other  expressions,  the  cleverest  of  all  being  the 
dictum  that  "we  laugh  every  time  a  person  gives  us  the  im- 
pression of  being  a  thing"  [p.  58]. 

The  felicity  of  M.  Bergson's  epigrams  should  not  hide 
the  inadequacy  of  his  doctrine.  It  fits  only  the  one  case  of 
laughing  at  a  definite  object,  not  the  more  fundamental  laughter 
of  delight,  laughter  by  contagion  when  others  laugh,  laughter 
of  sheer  high  spirits  and  merriment.  It  is  guilty  of  sub- 
stantially the  same  sins  of  omission  as  is  the  superiority  doc- 

♦A  revision  and  translation  into  English  of  essays  which  appeared 
in  their  first  form  in  1900. 


l68  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

trine,  though  it  does  not  commit  the  latter's  sin  of  assuming 
that  every  opportunity  to  feel  superior  is  an  adequate  stimulus 
to  laughter. 

Hall  and  Allin  think  as  a  result  of  their  census  of  experi- 
ences ['97]  that  being  tickled,  the  behavior  of  familiar  animals, 
recovery  from  slight  fear,  the  calamity  of  another,  the  so-called 
practical  joke,  caricature,  sudden  slight  shock  and  the  forbid- 
den or  secret,  are  the  chief  objects  to  which  laughter  is  an  un- 
learned response. 

Sully  ['02,  p.  57  ff.]  defines  the  total  situation  in  which 
tickling  produces  laughter  as  one  in  which  "the  child  is  happy 
and  disposed  to  take  things  lightly  and  as  play,"  in  which  the 
expected  contact  comes  from  a  "good-natured  mother  or  nurse 
by  way  of  play,"  so  that  there  is  "relief  from  a  serious  and  con- 
strained, attitude,  a  transition  from  a  momentary  apprehension 
.  .  .  to  a  joyous  sense  of  harmless  make-believe."  He  thinks 
that  the  sudden  relaxation  of  a  specially  severe  strain  evokes 
laughter  of  the  nervous  semi-hysterical  sort  [ibid.,  65  ff.]. 
**The  laughter  of  joy  is  most  noticeable,"  he  thinks,  "under  two 
sets  of  conditions.  Of  these  the  first  is  the  situation  of  release 
from  external  restraint."  The  second  is  "the  arrival  of 
some  good  thing  which  is  at  once  unexpected  and  big  enough! 
to  lift  us  to  a  higher  level  of  happiness"  [ibid.,  p.  72].  Under 
these  two  general  rules  Sully  would  bring  the  resumption  of  the 
play  attitude,  kindly  teasing,  practical  joking,  relief  and  ex- 
ultation after  victory,  and  relief  from  the  'emotional  pressure' 
of  solemn  occasions.  The  'more  intellectual'  causes  of  laughter 
he  finds  to  be:  'novelty  and  oddity'  to  a  person  feeling  him- 
self secure;  'bodily  deformities,'  especially  'additions  or  exten- 
sions;' 'certain  moral  deformities'  such  as  'dumbness,  coward- 
ice, miserliness,  and  vanity ;'  'breaches  of  order  and  rule ;'  'small 
misfortunes,  especially  those  which  involve  something  in  the 
nature  of  a  difficulty  or  "fix"  ' ;  'the  indecent ;'  'pretences ;'  the 
exhibition  of  'want  of  knowledge  or  of  skill;'  'relations  of 
contrariety  and  incongruity;'  'verbal  play  and  amusing  witti- 
cism ;'  'objects  which  affect  us  as  expressions  of  a  merry  mood ;' 


THE   EMOTIONS   AND   THEIR    EXPRESSION  169 

and  'situations  which  involve  a  relation  akin  to  that  of  victor 
and  vanquished.'    [ibid.,  pp.  82-153,  passim.] 

The  reader  will  have  noted  that  the  simple  general  theories 
of  the  situations  to  which  laughter  is  the  response  fail  to  fit 
the  facts,  whereas  the  attempts  of  Hall  and  AUin  and  of  Sully 
to  work  up  from  the  facts  leave  us  with  an  unorganized  melange 
of  provocatives  of  laughter.  What  originally  provokes  laugh^- 
ter  must  be,  one  feels,  some  simpler  set  of  situations  or  ele- 
ments of  situations  than  they  list,  but  these  original  bonds, 
which  grow  into  the  complex  of  habits  of  laughing  in  re- 
sponse to  health,  slight  shock,  caricature,  others'  discomfort, 
being  tickled  and  so  on,  remain  uncertain. 

Similar  disagreements  and  complexities  would  be  found 
also  in  the  case  of  man's  original  tendencies  to  weep,  blush, 
increase  heart-rate  or  deepen  inspiration.  The  discovery  and 
proof  of  what  situations  originally  provoke  these  expressive 
movements,  obvious  or  hidden,  is  a  task  for  the  future. 


chapter  xii 
Consciousness,  Learning,  and  Remembering 

Our  inventory  so  far  has  not  included  the  original  tenden- 
cies of  the  original  tendencies  themselves — the  original  tenden- 
cies not  to  this  or  that  particular  sensitivity,  bond  or  power  of 
response,  but  of  sensitivities,  connections  and  responses,  in 
general.  Thus,  it  is  a  fact  of  original  nature  that  being  im- 
pressed by  this,  that  and  the  other  situation  and  making  this, 
that  and  the  other  connection  occupies  time,  may  produce  the 
inner  life  which  a  man  has  as  his  consciousness,  and  may  leave 
an  effect  upon  the  man's  nature  long  after  the  situation  and 
response  of  that  time  are  ended.  It  is  a  fact  of  original  na- 
ture that  certain  states  of  affairs  are  satisfying  to  a  man's 
neurones — are  such  as  they  do  nothing  to  avoid,  whereas  other 
states  of  affairs  are  annoying  to  the  neurones — stimulate  them 
to  do  something  until  the  annoying  state  of  affairs  gives  way 
to  a  satisfying  one  which  they  do  nothing  to  avoid.  That 
is,  reflexes,  instincts  and  capacities  (i)  always  take  place  in 
time,  (2)  sometimes  produce  or  modify  the  inner  conscious 
life  of  the  animal  whose  they  are,  and  (3)  sometimes  change 
the  organism  more  or  less  permanently.  The  neurones  which 
are  concerned  in  them  have  roughly  the  original  tendency  (4)  to 
do  nothing  different  when  their  life  processes  are  being  facili- 
tated and  to  make  whatever  changes  are  in  their  repertory  when 
their  life  processes  are  disturbed. 

The  first  of  these  general  tendencies  everyone  properly 
takes  for  granted.     No  more  need  be  said  of  it. 

original  tendencies  to  consciousness 

Little  need  be  said  of  the  second.  Man's  original  nature 
is  such  that,  when  certain  parts  of  his  millions  of  neurones  act 

170 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  I7I 

in  certain  ways,  he  has,  or  is,  certain  states  of  awareness,  feel- 
ing, consciousness,  purely  mental  existence,  or  whatever  one 
chooses  to  call  the  inner  life  to  which  a  man  refers  when  he 
asks  himself,  *Is  this  the  same  dream  that  I  had  last  night?' 
or,  *Is  this  pain  different  from  what  I  felt  a  second  ago?' 
What,  in  detail,  the  exact  nature  of  the  consciousness  related 
to  any  given  action  of  any  given  part  of  his  neurones  is,  no  one 
knows.  But  no  competent  thinker  doubts  that  bonds  exist  in 
original  nature  whereby  any  one  given  status  of  a  man's  nerv- 
ous system  produces  always  the  same  condition  of  conscious- 
ness. Whenever,  from  any  set  of  causes,  that  neurone-status 
is  brought  to  pass,  that  condition  of  consciousness  will  also 
appear. 

It  is  conceivable  that,  if  provided  with  enough  knowledge 
and  skill,  man  might  determine  his  states  of  consciousness  by 
direct  operations  upon  his  neurones.  By  local  stimulation  and 
restriction  of  the  action  of  neurones  he  might  induce  one  emo- 
tion or  thought  and  abolish  another,  as  he  now  increases  the 
sense  of  well-being  by  alcohol  or  dulls  pain  by  morphine.  He 
might  then  use  the  original  tendencies  for  certain  action  in 
certain  neurones  to  produce  a  certain  condition  of  conscious- 
ness in  as  practical  a  way  as  we  now  use  the  original  tendency 
for  a  touch  on  the  back  of  the  tongue  to  produce  swallowing 
movements. 

THE   CAPACITY   TO    LEARN 

The  third  fact  noted  above  refers  to  the  capacity  for  perma- 
nent modifiability  or  'learning,'  which  is,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  man's  welfare,  the  most  important  fact  in  nature. 

The  Law  of  Use. — ^To  the  situation,  *a  modifiable  connec- 
tion being  made  by  him  between  a  situation  S  and  a  response 
R,'  man  responds  originally,  other  things  being  equal,  by  an 
increase  in  the  strength  of  that  connection.  By  the  strength  of 
a  connection  is  meant  the  probability  that  it  will  be  made  when 
the  situation  recurs.  Greater  probability  that  a  connection  will 
be  made  means  a  greater  probability  for  the  same  time,  or  an 


172  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

equal  probability  but  for  a  longer  time.*  Thus,  strengthening 
the  connection  between  'being  asked  how  many  six  and  seven 
are'  and  'saying  "thirteen,"  '  may  mean  that  the  probability 
of  that  response  during  the  next  six  days  is  eight  out  of  ten 
instead  of  seven  out  of  ten,  or  that  the  probability  is  seven 
out  of  ten  for  sixty  days  instead  of  for  forty. 

The  Law  of  Disuse. — To  the  situation,  *a  modifiable  con- 
nection  not  being  made  by  him  between  a  situation  S  and  a 
response  R,  during  a  length  of  time  T,'  man  responds  origin- 
ally, other  things  being  equal,  by  a  decrease  in  the  strength  of 
that  connection. 

The  tendencies  of  use  and  disuse  may  be  listed  together 
under  one  name  as  the  Law  of  Exercise. 

As  corollaries  of  the  law  of  use  we  have  the  facts  that  the 
degree  of  strengthening  of  a  connection  will  depend  upon  the 
vigor  and  duration  as  well  as  the  frequency  of  its  making.  To 
think  *6-|-7=i3'  attentively  and  for  ten  seconds  will  thus  in- 
crease the  strength  of  its  bond  more  than  to  think  of  it  lightly 
and  for  only  half  a  second. 

The  Law  of  Effect. — To  the  situation,  'a  modifiable  connec- 
tion being  made  by  him  between  an  S  and  an  R  and  being 
accompanied  or  followed  by  a  satisfying  state  of  affairs'  man 
responds,  other  things  being  equal,  by  an  increase  in  the 
strength  of  that  connection.  To  a  connection  similar,  save  that 
an  annoying  state  of  affairs  goes  with  or  follows  it,  man  re- 
sponds, other  things  being  equal,  by  a  decrease  in  the  strength 
of  the  connection. 

As  a  corollary  to  the  law  of  effect  we  have  the  fact  that 
the  strengthening  effect  of  satisfyingness  varies  with  its  inti- 
macy with  the  bond  in  question  as  well  as  with  the  degree  of 
satisfyingness.  Such  intimacy,  or  closeness  of  connection  be- 
tween the  satisfying  state  of  affairs  and  the  bond  it  affects, 
may  be  due  to  close  temporal  sequence  or  to  attentiveness  to 
the  situation  and  response.     Other  things  being  equal,   the 

*Certain  additions  and  qualifications  are  necessary  to  make  this  defini- 
tion adequate,  but  it  will  serve  provisionally. 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING   AND   REMEMBERING  1 73 

same  degree  of  satisfyingness  will  act  more  strongly  on  a  bond 
made  two  seconds  previously  than  on  one  made  two  minutes 
previously, — ^more  strongly  on  a  bond  between  a  situation  and 
a  response  attended  to  closely  than  on  a  bond  equally  remote 
in  time  in  an  unnoticed  series. 

These  tendencies  for  connections  to  gjow  strong  by  exer- 
cise and  satisfying  consequences  and  to  grow  weak  by  disuse 
and  annoying  consequences  should,  if  importance  were  the 
measure  of  the  space  to  be  allotted  to  topics,  preempt  at  least 
half  of  this  inventory.  As  the  features  of  man's  original 
equipment  whereby  all  the  rest  of  that  equipment  is  modified 
for  use  in  a  complex  civilized  world,  they  are  of  universal  im- 
portance in  education.  They  are  the  effective  original  forces 
in  what  has  variously  been  called  nurture,  training,  learning 
by  experience,  or  intelligence. 

Since,  however,  they  are  so  clear  and  straightforward,  they 
need  no  comment  at  this  point*  save  this  reminder  of  their  im- 
portance, a  statement  of  which  connections  are  modifiable,  and 
a  defense  of  them  against  certain  wrong  accounts  of  the  orig- 
inal tendencies  to  strengthen  and  weaken  bonds  in  behavior. 

UMITATIONS    TO    MODIFIABILITY 

Which  connections  are  modifiable  is  not  known  with  abso- 
lute surety  and  precision.  At  one  extreme  are  connections, 
such  as  that  between  'being  supported  by  only  the  air'  and 
'falling  toward  the  centre  of  the  earth,'  which  are  utterly  un- 
modifiable.  At  the  other  extreme  are  connections,  such  as  that 
between  the  situation  just  mentioned  and  'screaming.'  which 
are  obviously  modifiable.  One  will  always  tend  to  fall  but  he 
may  learn  not  to  tend  to  scream. 

The  doubtful  cases  are  the  connections  found  in  reflexes 

♦Since  these  original  tendencies  for  use  and  satisfying  consequences 
to  strengthen  connections,  and  for  disuse  and  annoying^ess  to  weaken 
them,  are  the  efficient  forces  in  learning,  they  will  be  discussed  again  in 
the  second  volume  of  this  treatise  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  inquiry 
into  man's  acquired  tendencies  or  the  results  of  learning. 


174  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

like  the  contraction  of  the  pupil  to  brighter  light,  or  sneezing 
at  certain  irritations  of  the  mucous  membrane  of  the  nose,  and 
in  the  still  more  purely  physiological  behavior  of  circulation, 
digestion,  metabolism  and  the  like.*  It  is  chiefly  in  hygiene  and 
medicine  that  doubt  arises  whether  a  certain  change  can  or 
cannot  be  regulated  by  use,  disuse,  satisfyingness  and  dis- 
comfort. 

THE   SUPPOSED   FORMATION   OF   CONNECTIONS    BY   'FACULTIES' 

There  are  three  current  opinions  concerning  the  original 
capacities  of  man  to  learn,  that  is,  to  strengthen  and  weaken 
bonds  in  behavior,  which  seem  contrary  to  fact.  First  is  the 
opinion  that  attention,  memory,  reasoning,  choice  and  the  like 
are  mystical  powers  given  to  man  as  his  birthright  which 
weight  the  dice  in  favor  of  thinking  or  doing  one  thing  rather 
than  another,  however  the  laws  of  instinct,  exercise  and  effect 
make  the  throw.  This  opinion  is  vanishing  from  the  world  of 
expert  thought  and  no  more  need  be  said  about  it  than  that  it 
is  false  and  would  be  useless  to  human  welfare  if  true. 

THE  SUPPOSED  FORMATION  OF  CONNECTIONS  BY  THE  PERCEP- 
TION OF  THEIR  ACTION  IN   ANOTHER 

The  second  opinion  is  that  for  a  man  to  perceive  an  S-R 
sequence  in  another  man's  behavior  in  and  of  itself  predis^ 
poses  him  to  respond  to  that  S  by  that  R — ^that  imitation  exists 
as  a  force  whereby  the  perception  of  R,  in  connection  with  S, 
in  another  man's  behavior  creates  a  bond  between  R  and  S  in 
the  perceiving  individual.     Of  this  I  can  find  no  evidence. 

It  is,  of  course,  the  case  that  imitation  of  a  certain  sort  is 
potent  in  man's  learning.  First,  certain  behavior  of  other 
men,  as  has  been  shown,  stirs  the  percipient  to  the  same  be- 
havior.    Smiling  at  a  smile,   following  a  leader,  and  being 

♦"Occasional  instances  are  recorded  of  power  to  slow  the  rh}^hm  of 
the  heart  at  will;  others  of  power  to  suppress  the  reflex  of  swallowing 
when  it  has  entered  on  its  pharyngeal  stage."     [Sherrington,  '06,  p.  389.] 


CONSCIOUSNESS^   LEARNING   AND   REMEMBERING  175 

pleased  at  another's  pleasure  are,  like  most  instincts,  educative 
in  their  limited  sphere.  In  the  second  place,  the  behavior  of 
other  men  again  and  again  provides  models  which  decide,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  the  satis fyingness  of  one's  own  responses,  and 
so  are  accessories  in  the  action  of  the  law  of  effect.  But  this 
is  not  the  imitation  required  by  the  opinion  in  question.  The 
enunciation  or  gesture  of  another  man,  acting  as  a  model, 
forms  one's  habits  of  speech  or  manners  in  just  the  same  way 
that  the  physical  properties  of  trees  form  one's  habits  of 
climbing. 

In  the  third  place,  the  behavior  of  other  men  may,  as  a 
child's  intellect  develops,  suggest  to  him  all  sorts  of  ideas; 
these  ideas  may  lead  to  acts  by  the  Icfws  of  exercise  and  effect ; 
these  acts  may  often  be  like  those  which  gave  the  suggestion. 
Thus  seeing  someone  taking  a  drink  of  water  may  suggest 
awareness  of  my  own  thirst,  or  the  fact  that  I  shall  not  ag^in 
have  an  opportunity  to  get  water  during  the  afternoon,  or 
the  mere  thought  of  getting  a  drink.  Any  one  of  these 
thoughts  has  strong  connections  by  previous  habit  with  the  re- 
sponse of  getting  a  drink.  The  behavior  of  others  is  a  very 
important  provider  of  situations  to  which  habit  has  bound  re- 
sponses like  the  behavior  seen.  But  the  binding  force  is  habit 
— that  is,  the  laws  of  exercise  and  effect — not  imitation  in 
the  sense  required  by  the  theory  in  question. 

For  the  sheer  direct  potency  of  an  S-R  connection  wit- 
nessed to  reproduce  itself  in  the  witness,  the  evidence  alleged 
is  that  from  infant  life  rehearsed  on  pages  1 10-122  (which, 
we  found,  shrank  to  the  pitiable  mystery  of  one  or  two  babies 
sticking  out  their  tongues)  and  that  from  men  in  mobs  who 
are  supposed  to  display  this  sheer  direct  modifiability  by  imita- 
tion because  they  act  against  habit  and  their  own  essential 
desires.  It  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book  to  explain  mob- 
psychology,  but  a  recital  of  the  details  in  such  cases  would,  I 
think,  show  that  fleeing,  attacking,  pouncing  on  and  rending, 
and  other  wholes  or  fragments  of  instinctive  cooperative  activi- 
ties, were  all  that  happened  supposedly  as  a  consequence  of 


176  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

imitation.  Such  would  happen  by  reason  of  specific  original 
bonds  with  the  specific  situations,  irrespective  of  any  general 
imitative  tendency,  if  acquired  restraints  were  dissipated  by 
excitement,  temporary  monomania  or  the  suggestions  of  a 
magnetic  leader. 

There  is  then  no  more  evidence  for  thoroughgoing  imita- 
tion as  a  general  capacity  for  learning  than  we  found  for  it  as  a 
general  instinctive  response  to  the  behavior  of  other  men.  The 
two  senses  would  indeed  be  the  same,  and  the  facts  noted  here 
and  in  Chapter  VIII  could  as  well  have  been  combined  in  one 
contra-argument. 

THE   SUPPOSED  FORMATION   OF   CONNECTIONS   BY   THE   POWER 
OF  AN  IDEA  TO  PRODUCE  THE  ACT  WHICH  IT  REPRESENTS 

Next,  and  even  more  orthodox,  is  the  theory  of  ideo-motor 
action,  that  the  idea  of  an  act  or  of  the  result  of  an  act,  or  of 
some  part  of  such  result,  tends,  in  and  of  itself,  to  produce  or 
connect  with  that  act.  Accordingly  an  act  may  be  bound  to 
any  situation  by  connecting  with  that  situation  some  conscious 
representation  of  that  act. 

The  classic  statement  of  the  power  to  bind  acts  to  situa- 
tions by  so  linking  ideas  of  them  is  given  by  James  in  the  often 
quoted  dictum : — 

"We  may  then  lay  it  down  for  certain  that  every  represen- 
tation of  a  movement  awakens  in  some  degree  the  actual 
movement  which  is  its  object;  and  awakens  it  in  a  maximum 
degree  whenever  it  is  not  kept  from  so  doing  by  an  antagon- 
istic representation  present  simultaneously  to  the  mind"  ['93, 
vol.  2,  p.  526.] 

McDougall,  in  listing  ideo-motor  action  as  a  'general  or 
non-specific  innate  tendency,'  describes  it  thus : 

"In  the  special  case  in  which  the  object  to  which  we  direct 
our  attention  by  a  volitional  effort  is  a  bodily  movement,  the 
movement  follows  immediately  upon  the  idea  in  virtue  of  that 
mysterious  connection  between  them  of  which  we  know  almost 
nothing  beyond  the  fact  that  it  obtains"   ['08,  p.  242] ;  and 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  Ijy 

elsewhere  "...  the  visual  presentation  of  the  movement  of 
another  is  apt  to  evoke  the  representation  of  a  similar  move- 
ment of  one's  own  body,  which,  like  all  motor  representations, 
tends  to  realize  itself  immediately  in  movement"    ['08,  p.  105]. 

Wundt's  account  of  the  power  of  an  image  or  idea  of  a 
movement  to  connect  that  movement  with  itself  is  obscure, 
but  he  seems  to  state  that  kinesthetic  images  tend  as  situations 
to  evoke  responses  which  they  have  not  evoked  before  but 
which  they  are  like.  The  apperception  of  an  image  of  a  move- 
ment, he  says,  is  followed  by  the  movement  unless  some  contrary 
force  acts.  In  particular  "children  and  primitive  men  are 
not  able  to  get  fully  a  vivid  idea  of  a  movement  of  their  own 
bodies  without  having  such  a  movement  actually  take  place" 
['93,  vol.  2,  p.  567  f.].  The  context  shows  that  Wundt 
does  not  at  all  mean  that  they  need  to  make  the  movement  so  as 
to  get  the  image,  but  accepts  the  common  view  that  any  image 
tends  to  evoke  the  movement  which  it  most  resembles  or  is  an 
image  of,  regardless  of  whether  any  bond  has  been  made  by 
use,  disuse,  satisfaction  or  discomfort. 

Against  this  orthodox  opinion,  I  contend  that  the  idea  of  a 
movement  (or  of  any  response  whatever)  is,  in  and  of  itself, 
unable  to  produce  it.  I  contend  that  an  idea  does  not  tend 
to  provoke  the  act  which  it  is  an  idea  of,  but  only  that  which  it 
connects  with  as  a  result  of  the  laws  of  instinct,  exercise  and 
effect. 

In  particular  I  contend  that  any  idea,  image,  sensation, 
percept,  or  any  other  mental  state  whatever,  has,  apart  from 
use.  disuse,  satisfaction  and  discomfort,  no  stronger  tendency 
to  call  up  a  movement  like  itself  or  meant  by  it  than  to  call  up 
any  other  movement.  Two  intelligible  meanings  can  be  at- 
tached to  'the  representation  of  a  certain  movement  by  an 
idea,'  or  to  'an  idea  having  a  certain  movement  as  its  object,' 
or  to  'an  idea  being  of  a  certain  movement,'  and  the  like.  The 
first  is  that  the  idea  is  like  the  movement  in  the  same  way  that 
the  mental  image  of  a  red  inch  square  is  like  such  a  square. 
The  second  is  that  the  idea  means  the  movement  in  the  same 
12 


178  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE    OF    MAN 

way  that  the  image  of  the  words  *red  inch  square'  means  such 
a  square.  I  hold  that  in  neither  meaning  does  an  idea  tend  to 
produce  what  it  represents  or  has  as  its  object,  or  is  an  idea  of 
— ^that,  in  and  of  itself,  an  idea  tends  to  do  so  no  more  when 
what  it  represents  is  a  movement  of  one's  own  body  than  when 
what  it  represents  is  a  red-inch-square. 

The  upholders  of  the  orthodox  view  have  not  stated  what 
'the  mysterious  connection'  is.  They  may  mean  by  'repre- 
sent/ 'have  as  object'  and  'be  of  simply  'tend  to  produce,'  'lead 
to,'  *evoke  as  response.'  In  that  case  the  doctrine  of  the  'im- 
pulsive power  of  ideas'  is  a  mere  tautology,  stating  that  an 
idea  produces  what  it  does  produce,  evokes  as  a  response  what 
it  does  evoke.  Just  this  may  indeed  have  been  James'  mean- 
ing. For  he  was  interested  primarily  in  the  negative  fact 
that  no  special  ad  hoc  consciousness  of  'willing'  was  a  neces^ 
sity.  It  was  indifferent  to  his  main  purpose  how  an  idea  was 
able  to  lead  to  action.* 

They  may  mean  by  'to  represent'  or  'to  have  as  object' 
simply  'to  have  been  connected  with  in  accordance  with  the  laws 
of  exercise  and  effect.'  In  that  case,  the  doctrine  of  the  'im- 
pulsive power  of  ideas'  is  precisely,  as  I  assert,  one  small  fea- 

*The  reader  acquainted  with  psychological  literature  on  Action  will 
understand  that  I  have  quoted  James'  account  of  the  doctrine  that  the 
resemblance  between  an  idea  and  an  act  (or  the  act's  result)  tends  in 
and  of  itself  to  form  a  bond  between  that  idea  and  that  act  simply  be- 
cause his  statement  is  one  of  the  clearest,  most  instructive,  and  most 
accepted  by  psychologists,  not  because  he  is  prominent  as  a  defender 
of  such  magic  powers  in  general.  On  the  contrary,  James  advocated 
idea-motor  action  as  a  refuge  from  a  still  worse  magic,  the  supposed  need 
of  some  innervation-sense,  or  some  special  consciousness  of  willing,  or 
some  ex  cathedra  Hat  of  one's  personality,  in  order  to  get  out  of  bed  or 
wash  one's  face.  He  was  not  interested  in  showing  positively  that  con- 
nections can  be  created  between  a  situation  and  an  act  by  the  likeness  of 
the  former  to  the  latter,  but  in  showing  negatively  that  man  does  not 
need  a  special  volitional  act  or  conscious  fiat  or  fore-feeling  of  the  muscle's 
innervation  to  create  them.  For  his  purpose  it  made  no  difference  whether 
for  an  idea  to  be  *a  representation  of  a  movement'  meant  'to  be  like  it' 
or  *to  have  been  a  situation  provoking  it,* — whether  for  a  movement  to 
be  the  'object'  of  an  idea  meant  to  be  like  it  or  to  have  been  provoked 
by  it    He  did  not  raise  the  issue. 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING   AND   REMEMBERING  179 

ture  of  the  general  law  that  any  situation  tends  to  produce  the 
response  that  original  nature  and  these  laws  of  learning  have 
bound  to  it.  So  Angell  states,  in  discussing  this  matter,  that 
"the  appropriate  muscular  activity  never  follows  an  idea  unless 
one's  previous  experience  has  in  some  fashion  or  other  estab- 
lished a  nexus  of  the  habit  type."     ['04,  p.  356  f.] 

In  general,  however,  as  the  use  of  the  doctrine  of  ideo- 
motor  action  in  applications  to  education,  medicine  and  ethics 
shows,  its  adherents  do  assume  an  intrinsic  tendency  of  an 
idea  to  produce  the  movement  which  it  is  like,  or  which  it 
means,  or  both.  This  appears  in  a  recent  statement  of  the  doc- 
trine made,  with  awareness  of  the  contrary  view,  by  Wash- 
burn. She  says:  "A  movement  idea  is  the  revival,  through 
central  excitation,  of  the  sensations,  visual,  tactile,  kinesthetic 
originally  produced  by  the  performance  of  the  movement  it- 
self. And  when  such  an  idea  is  attended  to,  when,  in  popular 
language,  we  think  hard  enough  of  how  the  movement  would 
"feel"  and  look  if  it  were  performed,  then,  so  close  is  the  con- 
nection between  sensory  and  motor  processes,  the  movement  is 
instituted  afresh.  This  is  the  familiar  doctrine  expounded  by 
James  in  Chapter  XXVI  of  his  "Psychology."     ['08,  p.  280.] 

It  is  asserted  here  that,  if,  to  a  certain  situation,  Si,  a 
certain  movement.  Mi,  is  the  response  and  if  Mi  in  turn 
produces  the  sensations  'visual,  tactile,  kinesthetic,'  Seuj,  then 
Seni,  or  the  images  corresponding  to  Sen,  (call  these  Im,), 
will  have  power,  irrespective  of  any  additional  connections  in 
the  animal's  experience,  to  evoke  some  movement.  It  is  as- 
serted further  that  Imi  will  evoke  the  particular  movement  Mi 
which  produced  Sen,.  Washburn  does  not  say  whether  this 
potency  is  due  to  the  likeness  of  Im,  to  M,,  or  to  the  fact 
that  Sen,  followed  M,  closely  in  the  same  pulse  of  life.  I  am 
willing  to  admit  a  slight  IxDnd  due  to  the  latter  cause,  though 
I  should  insist  that  S,  would  be  much  more  closely  bound  as 
antecedent  to  M,  than  Sen,  or  Im,  would  be,  by  such  an 
experience. 

Since  Miss  Washkirn  goes  on  to  make  such  Im,->-Mj,  ten- 


l80  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

dencies  the  essential  thing  in  the  acquisition  of  skill,  and  since 
the  very  slight  forward  bond  created  by  use  between  a  condi- 
tion and  the  condition  preceding  it  is  obviously  not  the  essen- 
tial thing  in  such  learning,  it  seems  certain  that  she  has  in 
mind  some  veritable  potency  of  likeness.  The  close  'connec- 
tion between  sensory  and  motor  processes'  which  she  posits 
would  seem  to  be  the  connection  between  a  given  sensory  pro- 
cess Seni  and  the  movement,  Mi,  which  it  was  like,  and  would 
seem  to  be  close,  not  because  the  Mi->-Seni  connection  had,  as 
an  additional  effect,  a  very  slight  tendency  to  production  of  the 
Seni->-Mi  connection,  but  because  Seni  was  more  'like'  Mi 
than  any  ofher  M. 

Professor  Calkins  still  more  explicitly  states  that  in  volun- 
tary action  we  arouse  a  certain  response  by  getting  in  mind 
an  idea  that  is  like  the  response.  An  'outer'  volition  being  a 
volition  to  act  in  a  certain  way  and  an  'inner'  volition  being  a 
volition  to  think  in  a  certain  way,  "The  volition  is  the  image 
of  an  action  or  of  a  result  of  action  which  is  normally  simitar 
and  antecedent  to  this  same  action  or  result.  My  volition  to 
sign  a  letter  is  either  an  image  of  my  hand  moving  the  pen 
or  an  image  of  my  signature  written,  and  my  volition  to  pur- 
chase something  is  an  image  of  myself  in  the  act  of  handing 
out  money  or  an  image  of  my  completed  purchase — golf  stick 
or  Barbedienne  bronze."  ['oi,  p.  299.]  Inner  volitions  "do 
not  so  closely  resemble  their  results.  The  volitional  image  of 
an  act  may  be,  in  detail,  like  the  act  as  performed;"  but  the 
volitional  image  of  a  thought  is  followed  by  only  a  "partially 
similar"  thought.      ['01,  p.  303.] 

Whatever  be  the  precise  opinions  of  these  particular  authors, 
there  is  a  general  belief  that  the  likeness  of  an  act  to  an  idea 
creates  an  efficient  bond  between  them.  Since  this  belief,  or 
something  to  the  same  effect,  is  at  the  bottom  of  widespread 
practices  in  medicine,  moral  education,  school  management, 
business  and  politics,  it  and  the  denial  of  it  which  I  have  made, 
must  be  examined. 

First  of  all,  if  James'  'representation  of  a  movement'  and 


CONSCIOUSNESS,  LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  l8l 

McDougall's  'idea'  are  taken  in  their  ordinary  meanings,  cases 
can  be  found  where  such  cannot  awaken  the  actual  movements 
which  they  are  representations  of  ideas  of.  A  little  child  may 
have  made  a  certain  movement*  a  thousand  times  and  may 
be  entirely  willing  and  eager  to  make  it,  but,  no  matter  how 
vividly  the  movement  is  described  to  him,  he  cannot  make  it 
as  a  result  of  the  ideas  of  it  evoked  by  such  a  description  and 
his  own  best  efforts  if,  hitherto,  he  has  made  the  movement 
only  in  response  to  sensory  stimuli.  The  idea  has  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  movement  or  with  the  sensory  stimuli  to  which 
the  movement  is  the  response  by  exercise  or  effect  before  it  has 
an  iota  of  efficiency  in  awakening  the  movement. 

An  idea  of  an  act,  not  bound  to  that  idea  by  use  and  effect 
certainly  need  not  be  immediately  followed  by  that  act.  If 
all  the  readers  of  this  page  summon  the  most  lively  and  accu- 
rate ideas  that  they  can  of  sneezing,  vomiting  and  hiccup- 
ing,  one  after  another,  not  once  in  a  hundred  times  will  the 
actual  movements  be  made.  Either  the  reader  cannot  get  a 
representation  of  those  movements  of  the  sort  the  theory  has 
in  mind,  or  the  theory  fails.  But  if  the  representation  of  the 
movement  needed  by  the  theory  is  such  as  not  one  in  a  hundred 
well-intentioned  students  of  psychology  can  get,  the  theory  be- 
comes a  priori  very  dubious.  Why  should  men  in  general 
have  the  capacity  to  provoke  an  act  by  an  idea  of  it,  but  only 
such  an  idea  as  not  one  man  in  a  hundred  can  summon  ? 

In  the  second  place,  in  at  least  the  majority  of  connections 
where  the  idea  of  an  act  does  produce  the  actual  movement, 
the  connection  can  be  proved  to  have  been  built  up  by  the  laws 
of  exercise  and  effect.  When  one  has  the  idea  of  going  to 
bed  and  goes,  or  of  writing  the  word  'cat'  and  writes  it,  the  ex- 
planation is  found  in  the  previous  training  that  has  put  the 
idea  of  going  to  bed  with  being  sleepy  and  other  situations  to 
which  going  to  bed  was  the  original  or  acquired  response,  or 
has  put  the  act  of  going  to  bed  with  the  idea  of  doing  so. 

*The  cases  observed  are  those  of  emptying  the  bladder,  and  of 
defecation. 


l82  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF   MAN 

Let  the  reader  now,  as  he  sits  in  his  chair,  summon  unopposed 
the  idea  of  standing  up.  He  may  do  it,  for  the  idea  of 
standing  up  has  gone  with  many  direct  sensory  situations 
which  have,  by  exercise  and  effect,  led  to  rising  from  a  chair. 
It  has,  indeed,  itself  been  bound  as  situation  to  that  response. 
But  let  him  summon  the  idea  of  diving  off  a  post  and  he  will 
not  make  the  corresponding  movements,*  but,  if  he  does  any- 
thing, will  stand  up.  Then  of  course  he  may  make  the  div- 
ing movements.  What  'follows  immediately  upon  the  idea' 
of  a  movement  is  the  act  that  has  followed  it  or  some  element 
of  it  often  or  with  resulting  satisfaction,  not  the  act  that  is  like 
the  idea. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  certain  that,  apart  from  exercise 
and  effect,  such  ideas  of  movements  as  one  commonly  gets 
do  not  as  a  rule  produce  the  movements,  and  that  such  move- 
ments as  one  makes  do  not  often  come  from  ideas  of  them. 
Let  the  reader  think  of  the  following  movements  one  after  an- 
other : — reaching  for  an  apple  on  his  knee,  grasping  it,  putting 
it  in  his  mouth,  biting  it,  chewing  the  pieces,  swallowing  the 
chewings ;  getting  out  of  bed,  walking  to  his  bath,  turning  the 
faucet,  climbing  into  the  tub,  splashing  himself,  getting  out, 
shivering,  taking  towels  from  the  rack,  rubbing  himself;  taking 
a  book,  opening  at  page  i,  moving  the  eyes  as  in  reading;  and  so 
on  through  a  thousand  movements  of  daily  life.  Consider 
also  the  thousand  or  more  different  voluntary  movements  last 
made  by  you.  How  few  were  responses  to  ideas  of  them  and 
how  many  were  responses  to  sensory  situations  or  ideas  totally 
different  from  them  but  with  which  they  had  been  connected  by 
habit !  In  the  illustrations  given  by  James  in  the  very  section 
in  which  he  announces  the  doctrine  of  ideo-motor  action,  all 
but  one  show  the  movement  led  up  to  by  a  sensorial  situation 
or  an  idea  that  is  not  of  the  movement  at  all.  That  one  shows 
the  person  making  the  movement  in  order  to  get  the  idea  of  it! 

Since  these  illustrations  are  typical  of  the  evidence  that  has 

*That  is,  such  portions  of  them  as  could  be  made  from   a  sitting 
position. 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  183 

been  used  to  support  the  doctrine  that  *we  think  the  act  and 
it  is  done,'  they  may  profitably  be  examined  one  by  one.  The 
first  two  are  as  follows :  "Whilst  talking  I  become  conscious 
of  a  pin  on  the  floor,  or  of  some  dust  on  my  sleeve.  Without 
interrupting  the  conversation,  I  brush  away  the  dust  or  pick 
up  the  pin.  .  .  .  the  mere  perception  of  the  object  and  the 
fleeting  notion  of  the  act  seem  of  themselves  to  bring  the  latter 
about"  ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  522].  Now  what  would  be  the  prob- 
able response  to  the  'mere  perception'  of  the  dust  on  the  sleeve 
supposing  there  had  been  no  'notion  of  the  act'?  Surely  to 
brush  it  away.  And  with  what  would  'the  notion  of  the  act' 
have  been  bound  by  the  laws  of  exercise  and  effect  alone? 
Surely  with  the  response  of  brushing  the  dust  away.  So  also 
with  picking  up  the  pin.  By  the  laws  of  exercise  and  effect  the 
sensorial  situation  without  the  idea  is  adequate  to  produce  the 
response ;  and  the  idea  itself  needs  no  potency  from  its  likeness 
to  the  act. 

"Similarly  I  sit  at  table  after  dinner  anti  find  myself  from 
time  to  time  taking  nuts  and  raisins  out  of  the  dish  and  eating 
them  .  .  .  the  perception  of  the  fruit  and  the  fleeting  notion 
that  I  may  eat  it  seem  fatally  to  bring  the  act  about."  [ibid., 
p.  522  f.]  It  seems  clear  that  for  the  behavior  in  question 
no  other  force  than  the  perception  of  the  fruit  and  the  laws 
of  exercise  and  effect  is  needed.  The  notion  'that  I  may  eat  it' 
is  here  not  only  one  to  which  the  act  might  well  be  bound  by 
exercise  and  effect,  but  is  apparently  nowise  like  the  acts  to 
which  it  leads.  The  notion  seems  to  be  a  rather  vague  one, 
'all  right  to  eat  it'  occurring  once,  while  the  act  is  a  very  com- 
plex one  of  reaching,  grasping,  carrying  to  the  mouth,  etc., 
and  is  repeated  over  and  over  again. 

The  fourth  illustration  is  getting  out  of  bed: — .  .  .  "the 
idea  flashes  across  me,  'Hollo!  I  must  lie  here  no  longer' — ^an 
idea  which  at  that  lucky  instant  awakens  no  contradicting  or 
paralyzing  suggestions,  and  consequently  produces  immediately 
its  appropriate  motor  effects."  [ibid.,  p.  524.]  Here  the  idea 
is  patently  not  a  representation  of  the  movement  at  all.     The 


l84  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

'Hollo*  and  *I  must'  show  clearly  that  it  is  in  words,*  not  in 
images  of  leg,  trunk  and  arm  movements.  Its  motor  effects 
are  appropriate,  not  in  the  sense  of  being  in  the  least  like  it  or 
represented  by  it,  but  in  the  sense  of  being  the  effects  which 
that  idea,  when  uncontested,  had,  by  exercise  and  effect,  come 
to  produce  in  that  man.  The  'Hollo!  I  must'  is  a  lineal  de- 
scendant of  the  sensory  admonitions  from  others  received 
during  life  and  connected  each  with  its  sequent  response  by 
use,  satisfaction,  and  the  discomforting  punishment  attached 
to  opposite  courses. 

These  four  cases  are  all  such  as  a  believer  in  the  entire  suf- 
ficiency of  the  laws  of  exercise  and  effect  might  properly 
choose  as  illustrations  of  their  action.  Moreover,  in  three  the 
sensorial  situation  is  adequate,  and  in  the  fourth  the  idea  nowise 
represents  or  is  like  the  movements. 

The  fifth  case  is :  "Try  to  feel  as  if  you  were  crooking  your 
finger,  whilst  keeping  it  straight.  In  a  minute  it  will  fairly 
tingle  with  the  imaginary  change  of  position;  yet  it  will  not 
sensibly  move  because  its  not  really  moving  is  also  a  part  of 
what  you  have  in  mind.  Drop  this  idea,  think  of  the  move- 
ment purely  and  simply,  with  all  brakes  off ;  and,  presto !  it  takes 
place  with  no  effort  at  all."  [ibid.,  p.  527.]  Now  the  essen- 
tial fact  here  is  that  when  one  is  told  to  try  to  feel  as  if  he 
were  crooking  his  finger,  he  tends,  in  the  case  of  many  sub- 
jects, to  respond  by  taking  an  obvious  way  to  get  that  feeling — 
namely,  by  actually  crooking  his  finger.  He  responds  to  the 
request,  regardless  of  any  ideas  beyond  his  understanding  of 
the  words,  by  a  strong  readiness  to  crook  his  finger.  Being 
forbidden,  he  restrains  the  impulse.  The  'tingling'  is  not  from 
the  imaginary  change  of  the  finger's  position  but  from  the 
real  restraint  from  changing  its  position.  The  tingling  occurs 
with  individuals  who  cannot  imagine  the  finger's  movement. 
Far  from  showing  that  the  imagined  movement  is  adequate, 

♦If  by  any  sophistry  it  could  be  twisted  into  a  representation  of  leg 
and  trunk  movements,  it  would  be  only  the  representation  of  lying  still 
plus  the  idea  of  negation. 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  185 

in  and  of  itself,  to  cause  the  movement,  such  cases  show  that  it  is 
unsafe  to  infer  that  the  image  comes  first  in  cases  where  dehb- 
erately  evoked  images  of  movements  are  accompanied  by  the 
movements  or  parts  thereof. 

It  appears  then  that  the  great  majority  of  movements  are 
not  produced  by  ideas  of  them  and  that  the  majority  of  ideas 
of  movements  do  not  produce  the  movements  which  they  rep- 
resent. When  an  idea  does  produce  the  movement  which  it  is 
an  idea  of,  that  movement  gives  evidence  of  having  been  bound 
to  that  idea  by  exercise  or  effect.*  The  connection  whereby 
the  idea  of  a  movement  could,  in  and  of  itself,  produce  that 
movement  would  indeed  be  mysterious  if  it  existed,  but  it  does 
not  exist. 

ATTEMPTED    EXPLANATIONS    OF    LEARNING    BY    THE   LAWS    OF 
EXERCISE  ALONE 

A  fourth  error  in  the  description  of  the  original  tendencies 
to  alter  the  connections  between  situations  and  responses  is  to 
neglect  the  law  of  effect,  the  influence  of  satisfiers  and  annOyers 
in  strengthening  and  weakening  connections — ^to  reduce  the 
process  of  habit-formation  to  the  effects  of  use  and  disuse 
alone.  This  inadequate  view  may  be  taken  either  from  mere 
neglect  of  the  observable  facts  in  the  case,  or  froni  a  delib- 
erate effort  to  get  from  evidence  an  even  simpler  view  of  the 
capacity  to  learn  than  that  which  I  have  defended.  Of  the 
latter  origin  are  the  hypotheses  of  Jennings.  Stevenson  Smith, 
and  Hobhouse.  A  refutation  of  their  arguments  will  there- 
fore be  the  best  way  to  establish  the  existence  of  an  original 
tendency  for  satisfaction  to  strengthen,  and  discomfort  to 
weaken,  the  bonds  which  they  accompany  or  closely  follow. 

Jennings  has  formulated  as  an  adequate  account  of  learning 
the  law  that :  "When  a  certain  physiological  state  has  been  re- 

*Further  evidence  against  the  assumption  that  ideas  have  power  in 
and  of  themselves  to  create  bonds  in  behavior  may  be  found  in  an 
article  by  the  author  which  will  appear  in  the  Psychological  Review 
during  1913. 


l86  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

solved,  through  the  continued  action  of  an  external  agent,  or 
otherwise,  into  a  second  physiological  state,  this  resolution  be- 
comes easier,  so  that  in  course  of  time  it  takes  place  quickly 
and  spontaneously."  ['06,  p.  289.]  "The  law  may  be  ex- 
pressed briefly  as  follows :  The  resolution  of  one  physiological 
state  into  another  becomes  easier  and  more  rapid  after  it  has 
taken  place  a  number  of  times.  Hence  the  behavior  primarily 
ch'aracteristic  for  the  second  state  comes  to  follow  immedii- 
ately  upon  the  first  state.  The  operations  of  this  law  are,  of 
course,  seen  on  a  vast  scale  in  higher  organisms  in  the  phe- 
nomena which  we  commonly  call  memory,  association,  habit 
formation  and  learning."  [ibid.,  p.  291.]  This  law  may  be 
expressed  symbolically  as  follows: 

Let  A,  B,  C  and  D  represent  a  series  of  consecutive  states 
of  affairs  in  an  animal.  Let  the  bonds  connecting  them  be 
represented  by  arrows.  Let  b  and  c  represent  B  and  C,  when 
passed  through  rapidly  and  in  modified  form  so  that  they  lack 
any  of  the  consequences  of  B  and  C  save  that  of  eventually 
leading  to  D. 

Then  the  law  is  that 

A->^B->C->D 
tends,  by  mere  repetition,  to  become 

A->D 
or 

A->&->c->-D. 

Mere  repetition,  however,  gives  no  reason  for  the  pro- 
duction by  A  of  now  B,  and  later  a  different  thing,  D  or  b. 
If  A  is  the  same,  it  must  in  the  same  conditions  produce  always 
the  same  result.  If  it  appears  on  repetition  to  produce  a  differ- 
ent result,  there  must  have  been  some  change  in  it  or  in  the 
conditions.  Mere  repetition  of  A->^B-^C->-D  could  never 
strengthen  the  A->-D  and  weaken  the  A->-B  or  A->-C  prob- 
abilities. If  D  is  made  more  probable,  and  B  and  C  less  prob- 
able in  connection  with  A,  the  oftener  A  occurs,  it  is  because  of 
the  results  of  B,  C  and  D  to  the  organism  in  that  connection. 

Moreover  "the  resolution  of  one  physiological  state  into 


CONSCIOUSNESS,  LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  187 

another"  via  connecting  links  does  not,  by  repeated  experiences 
of  the  series  alone,  "become  easier  so  that  in  course  of  time  it 
takes  place  quickly  and  spontaneously."  Paramecium,  as  Jen- 
nings has  so  effectively  shown,  reacts  again  and  again  through- 
out its  life  by  stopping,  backing,  turning  to  the  aboral  side 
and  then  swimming  forward.  Let  A,  B,  C,  and  D  be  the 
states  in  the  animal  productive  of  these  respective  responses. 
By  the  law  of  resolution  a  Paramecium  should  after  some 
scores  or  hundreds  of  such  reactions  experience  A^D,  and  so 
stop  and  at  once  swim  forward.  Professor  Jennings  does  not 
write  Paum  from  having  written  Paramecium  so  often  nor  have 
to  restrain  himself  from  saying  3;  ^r  as  soon  as  he  has  said  a  b. 
The  law  of  resolution  was  suggested  to  fit  certain  special 
cases  where  the  situation  which  starts  the  behavior-series  in 
question  is  itself  annoying  and  where  this  annoying  situation 
can  be  evaded  only  by  a  'successful'  response.  We  have,  that 
is, 

S  producing  AS  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  S  continues,  and 
produces 

BS,  a  different  state  of  affairs,  but  one  in  which 

S  still  continues  and,  produces 

CS,  a  different  state  of  affairs,  but  one  in  which 

S  still  continues  and,  produces 

D,  which  does  not  include  S,  and  by  excluding  it, 

relieves  the  annoyance. 
Now,  by  the  law  of  effect,  since  D,  the  end-term  of  the 
series,  is  the  only  one  that  relieves  the  annoyance,  the  con- 
nection of  S  with  D  must  be  strengthened  at  the  expense  of  all 
the  other  connections.  So  a  series  S->-AS->-BS->-CS->-D. 
will  'resolve'  into  its  first  and  last  term.  It  is  the  law  of  effect, 
however,  that  accounts  for  the  resolution. 

Stevenson  Smith  starts  from  this  same  special  case  of 
relief  from  an  annoying  situation  by  changing  it  for  any  other, 
arguing  as  follows : 

"Let  an  organism  at  birth  be  capable  of  giving  N  reactions 
(a,  b,  c,  .   .   .  N)  to  a  definite  stimulus  S  and  let  only  one  of 


l88  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

these  reactions  be  appropriate.  If  only  one  reaction  can  be 
given  at  a  time  and  if  the  one  given  is  determined  by  the  state 
of  the  organism  at  the  time  S  is  received,  there  is  one  chance  in 
N  that  it  is  the  appropriate  reaction.  When  the  appropriate 
reaction  is  finally  given,  the  other  reactions  are  not  called  into 
play,  S  may  cease  to  act,  but  until  the  appropriate  reaction  is 
given  let  the  organism  be  such  that  it  runs  through  the  gamut 
of  the  others  until  the  appropriate  reaction  is  brought  about. 
As  there  are  N  possible  reactions,  the  chances  are  that  the  ap- 
propriate reaction  will  be  given  before  all  N  are  performed. 
At  the  next  appearance  of  the  stimulus,  which  we  may  call  S2, 
those  reactions  which  were  in  the  last  case  performed,  are, 
through  habit,  more  likely  to  be  again  brought  about  than  those 
which  were  not  performed.  Let  u  stand  for  the  unperformed 
reactions.  Then  we  have  N — u  probable  reactions  to  S^. 
Habit  rendering  the  previously  most  performed  reactions  the 
most  probable  throughout  we  should  expect  to  find  the  appro- 
priate reaction  in  response  to 

Si  contained  in  N. 

S2  contained  in  N — Wi. 

Ss  contained  in  N — Wi — Uz. 


Sn  contained  in  N — nu,  which  approaches  one  as  a 
limit. 
Thus  the  appropriate  reaction  would  be  fixed  through  the  laws 
of  chance  and  habit.  This  law  of  habit  is  that  when  any  ac- 
tion is  performed  a  number  of  times  under  certain  conditions, 
it  becomes  under  those  conditions  more  and  more  easily  per- 
formed."    ['08,  pp.   503-504]. 

This  attractively  simple  hypothesis  is  entirely  inadequate 
to  account  for  habit-formation  in  general,  and  can  account  for 
even  the  one  special  case  only  by  supposing — what  does  not 
occur — that  the  animal  cannot  repeat  freely  any  one  of  the 
performances  in  his  repertoire  of  responses  to  S.  Thus  sup- 
pose that  N=3,  and  call  these  a,  b,  and  c.  Let  b  be  the 
'appropriate'  response  that  puts  an  end  to  S.  Suppose  the  ani- 
mal to  repeat  each  response  six  times  before  changing  to 
another.     Then  the  following  are  all  the  possible  results  from 


CONSCIOUSNESS,    LEARNING    AND    REMEMBERING  189 

S,  and  each  of  these  series  is  by  chance  equally  likely  to  happen. 

a  a  a  a  a  a  b 

aaaaaaccccccb 

b 

b 

c  c  c  c  c  c  b 

ccccccaaaaaab 

In  the  long  run,  then,  b  can  happen  only  one-third  as  often 

as  a  or  c;  and,  though  always  successful,  b  must,  if  Smith's 

theory  were  true,  appear  steadily  later  and  later.     After  enough 

repetitions  of  S,  b  could  appear  only  after  an  infinite  length 

of  time ! 

Smith's  hypothesis  supposes  the  animal  to  be  limited  to  such 
series  asab;acb;b;b;cab;cb.  But  animals  do,  as 
Smith's  own  admirable  experiments  abundantly  show,  very 
often  repeat  an  'unfavorable'  response  many  times  before 
changing  to  another.  If  the  law  of  exercise  acted  alone,  learn- 
ing could  therefore  not  be  adaptive.  It  is  the  effect  of  b 
that  binds  it  to  S.  It  is  the  effect  of  a  and  c  which,  in  spite  of 
greater  frequency  of  their  occurrence,  can  weaken  their  con- 
nections with  S.  Indeed  an  animal  may  by  original  nature 
respond  to  S  by 
aaacaaccab, 
aaccccaaaccb, 

acacaaccacb,  and  the  like,  and  yet  eventually  come 
to  respond  to  S  by  b  alone  and  at  once,  if  a  and  c  produce  an- 
noying states  of  affairs  while  b  produces  freedom  from  the 
annoyance  or  a  positive  satisfaction. 

A  less  important  attempt  to  explain  the  facts  of  modi- 
fiability  or  learning  without  the  action  of  the  law  of  effect  is 
that  of  Hobhouse,  who  offers  the  incongruity  with  R,  of  the 
later  response  (R2)  to  which  any  given  response  (Ri)  to  a 
situation  (Si)  leads,  as  the  force  which  disjoins  Ri  from  S,. 
The  congTuity  of  R2  with  R,  is  the  joining  force.  I  quote 
Holmes*  statement  of  Hobhouse's  doctrine,  since  it  is  perhaps 


190  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

clearer  and  better  supported  than  the  original  statement.     He 
writes : 

"A  new  point  of  view  in  regard  to  our  problem  has  been 
presented  by  Hobhouse  in  his  Mind  in  Evolution.  To  illus- 
trate this  view  let  us  recur  to  our  chick.  When  a  nasty  cat- 
erpillar is  seen  for  the  first  time  the  visual  stimulus  sets  up  a 
pecking  reaction.  This  is  followed  by  the  stimulus  of  a  bad 
taste  which  sets  up  various  rejection  movements,  such  as 
ejection  of  the  food  and  wiping  the  bill.  The  order  of  events 
is :  Stimulus  .  .  .  pecking  .  .  .  bad  taste  .  .  .  rejec- 
tion. When  the  same  kind  of  caterpillar  is  met  with  a  second 
time  the  stimulus  tends  to  elicit  the  rejection  movements  with 
which  it  has  been  associated  instead  of  the  movements  of 
pecking.  Is  not  the  inhibition  due  to  the  fact  that  the  stim- 
ulus has  become  associated  with  a  response  which  is  incon- 
gruous with  the  first  ?  Movements  of  rejection  and  avoidance 
are  incompatible  with  those  of  pecking  and  swallowing  and  it 
may  therefore  be  unnecessary  to  look  to  any  peculiarity  of  the 
physiological  correlates  of  pain  for  an  explanation  of  the  inhi- 
bition of  the  original  reaction.  The  stimulus  becomes  coupled 
with  a  new  reflex  arc;  nervous  energy  is  drained  off  in  a  new 
channel,  and  the  future  behavior  becomes  changed.  If  the 
taste  is  a  very  bad  one,  a  great  deal  of  energy  is  involved  and 
the  connection  with  the  rejection  response  made  very  perme- 
able and  the  rejection  movement  easily  set  up.  If  a  person  is 
confronted  with  a  sight  of  some  nauseating  medicine  he  has 
recently  taken,  avoiding  or  rejection  movements  are  set  up, 
such  as  making  a  face,  or  even  retching  movements  of  the  stom- 
ach. Is  it  not  these  movements  or  attempts  at  movements  that 
reall)'-  inhibit  the  taking  of  the  medicine?  This  is  evinced  by 
the  chick  described  by  Lloyd  Morgan,  which  after  an  experi- 
ence with  a  nasty  caterpillar  approached  one  a  second  time, 
but  stopped  and  wiped  its  bill  and  went  away  as  if  it  actually 
repeated  its  first  experience.  Of  course  inhibition  of  the  orig- 
inal response  does  not  always  involve  contrary  movements, 
but  there  may  be  impulses  to  such  movements  which  do  not 
issue  in  action.  The  principal  feature  in  the  modification  of 
action  through  painful  experience  is  the  assimilation  of  im- 
pulses incongruous  with  the  original  one. 

In  the  reinforcement  or  stamping  in  of  a  reaction  to  a  par- 
ticular stimulus  that  brings  pleasure,  it  certainly  seems  as  if 
pleasure  or  its  physiological  correlate  in  some  way  serves  to 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND   REMEMBERING  I9I 

cement  more  firmly  the  association  between  the  stimulus  and 
the  response.  Let  us  consider,  however,  the  case  in  which  the 
chick  pecks  at  a  caterpillar  which  has  a  good  taste.  The  presence 
of  the  caterpillar  in  the  mouth  excites  the  swallowing  reflexes; 
in  the  presence  of  a  similar  caterpillar  the  pecking  response  is 
made  more  readily  than  before,  and  whatever  hesitation  there 
may  have  been  at  first  disappears.  Is  not  the  difference  from 
the  pain-response  due  to  the  fact  that  there  is  an  organic  in- 
compatibility between  the  first  and  second  responses  in  the 
pain  response,  while  there  is  an  organic  congruity  or  mutual 
reinforcement  of  these  responses  in  the  other?  Pecking  and 
swallowing  form  the  normal  elements  of  a  chain  reflex;  when 
one  part  of  the  system  is  excited  it  tends  to  excite  the  rest,  to 
increase  the  general  tonus  of  all  parts  concerned  in  the  reaction. 

According  to  the  view  here  presented,  whether  a  particular 
response  to  a  stimulus  tends  to  be  repeated  more  readily  or  dis- 
continued, depends  not  upon  the  peculiar  physiological  state 
which  may  be  produced  in  the  brain,  but  upon  the  kind  of 
responses  which  the  stimuli  brought  by  the  act  call  forth.  If 
an  outreaching  reaction  becomes  coupled  with  a  withdrawing 
response  the  result  is  inhibition.  If  the  reaction,  on  the  other 
hand,  brings  stimuli  which  produce  congruent  reactions  the  as- 
sociation formed  with  these  latter  reinforces  the  first  reaction. 
The  pleasure-pain  response  then  resolves  itself  into  the  forma- 
tion of  associations.  Withdrawing  and  defensive  responses 
are  usually  initiated  by  pain-giving  stimuli,  and  the  instinctive 
or  random  movement  which  brings  a  painful  stimulus  is  in- 
hibited under  similar  conditions  in  the  future,  not  because  of 
the  pain  of  its  physiological  correlate,  but  because  it  comes  to 
be  associated  with  a  withdrawing  or  defensive,  and  hence  an 
incongruous  or  inhibitory  reaction.  Pleasure  and  pain  thus 
interpreted  have  no  mysterious  power  of  stamping  in  or  stamp- 
ing out  certain  associations.  Whether  the  result  is  reinforce- 
ment or  inhibition  depends  on  the  way  in  which  a  reaction  and 
the  secondary  responses  resulting  from  the  situation  in  which 
the  organism  is  thereby  brought,  happen  to  harmonize. 

The  step  from  instinct  to  intelligence  viewed  as  a  physiolog- 
ical process  involves,  therefore,  no  essentially  new  element  be- 
beyond  the  well-known  physiological  properties  of  the  nervous 
system,  and  we  are  not  committed  to  any  particular  hypothesis 
as  to  the  physiological  accompaniments  of  pleasure  or  pain,  or 
pleasantness  and  unpleasantness,  in  order  to  understand  how 
behavior  may  become  adaptively  modified.     How  far  the  inter- 


I9«  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

pretation  given  will  enable  us  to  explain  the  development  of 
intelligence  I  do  not  pretend  to  say.  It  may  break  down  in 
attempts  to  apply  it  to  higher  forms  of  learning,  but  it  affords 
a  useful  working  hypothesis  and  takes  us  a  way,  I  think,  toward 
the  solution  of  our  problem."     ['ii,  p.   176  ff.] 

This  doctrine  is  easily  shown  to  be  inadequate  by  the  facts 
noted  in  the  case  of  the  hypotheses  of  Jennings  and  Smith,  and 
by  the  further  fact  that  a  secondary  response  R2  may  bind  Ri 
to  Si  even  though  it  is  incongruous  with  it  and  disjoin  Ri  from 
Si  though  it  is  congruous  with  Ri.  Thus  a  cat  in  a  box,  the 
door  to  which  is  opened,  permitting  escape  and  eating,  when- 
ever the  cat  scratches  herself,  will  soon  come  to  scratch  as  soon 
as  put  in  the  box,  though  there  is  no  congruity  between  escape 
through  a  door  and  scratching.  Again,  if  a  cat  is  put  into  a 
box,  X,  with  two  alleys  opening  to  the  North  from  it,  A  and 
B,  and  if,  whenever  it  advances  two  feet  into  alley  A  it  is  hit 
from  behind  with  a  club  and  so  runs  on  out  of  the  North  end  of 
A,  whereas,  if  it  advances  two  feet  into  alley  B,  it  is  given  a 
piece  of  meat  and  hit  gently  from  in  front,  the  cat  will,  when 
put  into  X,  be  less  likely  to  advance  into  A  and  more  likely  to 
advance  into  B.  Yet  the  response  of  advancing  into  A  pro- 
duced the  congruous  secondary  response  of  advancing  further 
in  the  same  direction,  whereas  the  response  of  advancing  into 
B  produced  the  incongruous  retreat  to  X. 

Congruity  and  incongruity  have,  in  and  of  themselves,  no 
force  to  make  and  unmake  connections.  They  seem  to  do  so 
in  certain  special  cases  simply  because  congruity  is,  in  those 
cases,  a  symptom  of  satisfyingness,  and  incongruity  a  symptom 
of  annoyingness.  The  law  of  effect  is  primary,  irreducible 
to  the  law  of  exercise,  and  with  the  latter  is  the  moving  force 
in  all  learning. 

REMEMBERING 

The  words  *memory'  and  *to  remember'  are  used  by 
psychologists  in  two  senses,  first  to  describe  consciousness  of 
a  certain  sort,  and  second  to  describe  the  permanent  effects  of 
experience.  The  following  quotations  from  James'  chapter  il- 
lustrate the  former  usage: 


CONSCIOUSNESS,   LEARNING  AND  REMEMBERING  193 

"Memory  proper,  or  secondary  memory  as  it  might  be 
styled,  is  the  knowledge  of  a  former  state  of  mind  after  it 
has  already  once  dropped  from  consciousness;  or  rather  it  is 
the  knowledge  of  an  event,  or  fact,  of  which  meantime  we 
have  not  been  thinking,  with  the  additional  consciousness  that 
we  have  thought  or  experienced  it  before. 

The  first  element  which  such  a  knowledge  involves  would 
seem  to  be  the  revival  in  the  mind  of  an  image  or  copy  of 
the  original  event.  And  it  is  an  assumption  made  by  many 
writers  that  the  revival  of  an  image  is  all  that  is  needed  to  con- 
stitute the  memory  of  the  original  occurrence.  But  such  a 
revival  is  obviously  not  a  memory,  whatever  else  it  may  be;  it 
is  simply  a  duplicate,  a  second  event,  having  absolutely  no  con- 
nection with  the  first  event  except  that  it  happens  to  resemble 
it  .  .  .  No  memory  is  involved  in  the  mere  fact  of  recur- 
rence. The  successive  editions  of  a  feeling  are  so  many  inde- 
pendent events,  each  snug  in  its  own  skin.  Yesterday's  feel- 
ing is  dead  and  buried ;  and  the  presence  of  today's  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  resuscitate.  A  farther  condition  is  required  be- 
fore the  present  image  can  be  held  to  stand  for  a  past  original. 
.  .  .  And  to  'refer'  any  special  fact  to  the  past  epoch  is  to 
think  that  fact  with  the  names  and  events  which  characterize 
its  date,  to  think  it,  in  short,  with  a  lot  of  contiguous  associates. 

But  even  this  would  not  be  memory.  Memory  requires 
more  than  mere  dating  of  a  fact  in  the  past.  It  must  be 
dated  in  my  past.  In  other  words,  I  must  think  that  I  directly 
experienced  its  occurrence.  It  must  have  that  'warmth  and 
intimacy'  which  were  so  often  spoken  of  in  the  chapter  on  the 
Self,  as  characterizing  all  experiences  'appropriated'  by  the 
thinker  as  his  own. 

A  general  feeling  of  the  past  direction  in  time,  then,  a 
particular  date  conceived  as  lying  along  that  direction,  and 
defined  by  its  name  or  phenomenal  contents,  an  event  imagined 
as  located  therein,  and  owned  as  part  of  my  experience, — such 
are  the  elements  of  every  act  of  memory.     .     .     . 

The  objects  of  any  of  these  faculties  may  awaken  belief  or 
fail  to  awaken  it ;  the  object  of  memory  is  only  an  object  imag- 
ined in  the  past  (usually  very  completely  imagined  there) 
to  which  the  emotion  of  belief  adheres.**  ['93,  vol.  I,  pp. 
648-650,  passim."] 

The  second  usage  is  clearest  in  such  statements  as  Tie 
remembers  perfectly  how  to  swim  and  how   to  dance,'  the 
13 


194  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

meaning  being  that  the  person  can  swim  and  dance  as  well  as 
he  ever  could.  There  is  here  no  question  of  the  person's  con- 
sciousness— no  question  of  ideas  about  objects,  his  own  past  or 
anything  else — ^but  only  of  the  permanence  of  certain  effects  of 
experience.  It  is  clear  enough  in  other  cases  where  states 
of  consciousness  are  involved,  but  where  the  words  'memory' 
and  'remember'  refer,  not  to  the  nature  of  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness but  to  the  permanence  of  the  connections  whereby 
such  and  such  a  state  of  consciousness  is  evoked  by  such  and 
such  a  situation.  Thus,  to  say  that  a  child  remembers  the  mul- 
tiplication table  or  the  English  equivalents  of  sum,  es,  est  means 
that  the  situations,  '4  x  9,"  '7  x  3,'  'homo  sum/  etc.,  will  evoke 
certain  responses,  whether  of  movements  or  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness, which  have  been  bound  to  them  in  the  past.  We 
do  not  mean  by  such  a  statement  to  assert  that  the  child  thinks 
of  his  own  past  experiences  of  4  x  9  or  is  in  any  wise  specially 
conscious  of  himself  or  of  the  past.  We  mean  simply  that 
he  can  think  or  say  or  write  36,  whereas  the  child  who  has  for- 
gotten his  multiplication  table  cannot.  Memory  in  this  second 
sense,  then,  is  simply  the  permanence  of  the  results  of  learning 
— the  tendency  of  any  situation  to  evoke  that  response  which 
has  been  connected  with  it. 

It  is  with  remembering  in  this  second  sense  that  we  are 
here  concerned.  It  is  an  original  capacity  of  man — and  of  all 
other  animals  that  can  be  properly  said  to  learn.  For  learning 
itself  implies  at  least  some  permanence  in  connections.  With^ 
out  it  the  law  of  use  could  not  hold  good,  and  the  law  of  effect 
would  be  of  no  consequence  if  each  strengthening  of  a  bond  by 
satisfying  results  vanished  as  soon  as  the  satisfying  results 
passed.  Remembering  has  indeed  been  fully  provided  for  in 
the  description  of  the  capacity  to  learn.  So  also  has  its  oppo- 
site— forgetting — in  the  law  of  disuse,  that,  other  things  being 
equal,  lapse  of  time  weakens  modifiable  connections. 

The  exact  working  of  this  capacity  and  incapacity  whereby 
connections  when  formed  persist,  but  with  weakening  strength 
as  time  elapses,  will  be  described  in  a  second  volume  on  the 
Psychology  of  Learning. 


chapter  xiii 

Summary,  Criticism,  and  Ci  assification 

In  three  respects  the  inventory  of  the  last  nine  chapters 
may  innocently  mislead.  The  fact  that  any  one  of  the  elements 
of  an  original  tendency  or  any  combination  of  tendencies  or 
any  cc»nbination  of  elements  may,  within  certain  limits,  act 
by  itself  has  not  been  emphasized.  Age,  sex,  race  and  other 
causes  of  individual  differences  in  the  strength  of  original  ten- 
dencies have  been  neglected.  The  early  and  incessant  modi- 
fication of  original  tendencies  by  their  interaction  under  the 
conditions  provided  by  physical  and  social  surroundings  has 
been  taken  for  granted  so  absolutely  that  it  may  seem  to  have 
been  forgotten.  So  the  reader  may  have  been  left  with  an 
impression  that  each  tendency  named  acts  very  definitely  and 
exclusively  as  a  unit,  that  some  one  typical  original  nature  of 
man  fits  closely  the  original  natures  of  all  human  individuals, 
and  that  each  tendency  of  man's  original  nature  remains  in 
statu  quo  imless  it  is  very  vigorously  attacked  by  special  and 
artificial  training.  From  time  to  time  minor  warnings  against 
these  false  inferences  have  been  given,  and  a  brief  statement  of 
the  facts  here  at  the  close  of  the  inventory  will  suffice. 

the  action  of  fragments  and  combinations  of  original 

tendencies 

It  has  been  necessary  for  clearness  and  brevity  to  parcel  out 
original  tendencies  into  fairly  clear-cut  behavior-series,  treat- 
ing the  situations  and  responses  somewhat  as  if  they  were  so 
many  cups  and  so  many  saucers  to  be  paired  off  for  a  tea-party. 
This  rhetorical  necessity  of  treating  situations  and  responses 
more  or  less  as  indivisible  and  unamalgamable  must  not,  how- 
ever, leave  the  impression  that  they  are  so  in  fact.     On  the 

195 


196  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

contrary,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  concretely  in  several  cases,  a 
situation  as  nature  offers  it  may  be  only  a  part  of  one  of  the 
situations  here  described,  or  a  compound  of  several  of  them,  or 
of  all  sorts  of  fragments  of  them.  The  responses  similarly  act 
in  fragments  and  in  combinations.  Original  tendencies  are  no 
more  like  a  set  of  Ic^ks  fitted  to  a  set  of  keys  than  they  are 
like  a  witch's  pot  which  gives  off  unpredictable  effects  when 
this  toad  or  that  snake's  eye  is  thrown  in. 

Original  nature  is  not  a  set  of  perfectly  independent  mech- 
anisms any  more  than  it  is  a  hodgepodge  for  chance.  It  is  a 
factory  or  hierarchy  of  mechanisms,  with  very  many  compo- 
nents, of  which  many  cooperate  in  response  to  any  one  situation. 
An  approaching  man  may,  by  the  peculiar  combination  of  size, 
rate  of  approach,  gestures,  facial  expression,  and  cries  which 
he  offers,  and  by  the  peailiar  combination  of  darkness,  familiar 
surroundings,  human  companionship  and  physical  contact,  full 
stomach,  wakefulness  and  so  on  characteristic  of  the  concomi- 
tant situation,  draw  on  a  score  of  different  responses. 

There  are  also  very  many  responses  in  the  shape  of  inhibi- 
tions, facilitations,  releases  and  readinesses  of  other  responses. 
Man's  nervous  system  provides  not  only  a  mechanism  to  make 
him  run,  but  also  probably  other  mechanisms  which  prevent  or 
stop  the  former  from  acting,  or  make  it  act  more  vigorously, 
or  start  it  acting,  or  put  it  in  readiness  to  act. 

In  none  of  the  higher  animals  is  original  nature  of  the  sirrt- 
ple  cup-and-saucer,  lock-and-key  plan;  and  in  man  the  com- 
plexity has  so  far  baffled  description.  It  is  intellectual  cheat- 
ing to  evade  the  difficulty  by  postulating  magic  powers  like 
'fear'  which  responds  to  'danger;'  but  even  the  most  honest 
effort  goes  nearly  bankrupt  in  the  face  of  the  obligations  of  a 
matter-of-fact  account  of  so  intricate  an  organization  of  con- 
nections. The  original  tendencies  of  man  act  piece-mearl  and 
in  combinations.  The  potency  of  a  situation  is  a  compound  of 
forces.  Its  bonds  are  real,  but  there  are  so  many  of  them 
that  the  best  of  inventories,  if  brief,  would  have  to  be  a 
caricature. 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND    CLASSIFICATION  197 

THE  VARIABILITY  OF  MEN  IN  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES 

Could  we  define  and  measure  the  exact  original  nature  of 
all  human  beings  they  would  by  no  means  be  duplicates.  In- 
deed, save  by  chance,  no  two  would  be  absolutely  so.*  The 
structural  arrangements  or  chemical  constituents  of  the  fertil- 
ized ovum  which  is  the  beginning  of  .'i  human  life  are  capable 
of  a  practical  infinity  of  permutations  and  combinations.  The 
eleven  thousand  millions  of  neurones  in  which  the  original 
connection  system  soon  manifests  itself  probably  never  pos- 
sess in  two  men  identical  connections  and  degrees  of  readi- 
ness to  act.  Gross  external  behavior  does  not  misrepresent, 
but  illustrates,  everywhere  the  variability  of  men  around  the 
type  of  the  human  species. 

In  a  later  volume  some  account  will  be  given  of  the  nature 
and  causation  of  individual  intellects  and  characters,  the  in- 
ventory of  this  volume  being  obviously  only  a  general  sketch 
of  the  original  nature  of  man  as  a  species. 

THE  MODIFIABILITY  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES 

In  order  to  describe  original  tendencies  at  all,  it  is  desirable 
to  abstract  strictly  from  the  changes  which  they  undergo  by 
virtue  of  their  mutual  action,  especially  of  the  action  of  exer- 
cise and  effect  upon  all  the  others.  But  in  order  to  describe 
them  truly,  it  is  necessary  to  add  to  such  a  list  of  abstracted 
tendencies  the  codicil  or  reservation  that  the  action  of  each 
at  any  time  is  conditioned  by  the  man's  experiences  up  to  that 
time  and  is  modified  for  the  future  by  its  own  consequences. 

The  original  nature  of  man  contains  within  itself  a  prin- 
ciple of  change,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  life  led  by  mod- 
ern man  metamorphose  almost  every  original  tendency  into 
habits  which  are  much  unlike  it — even  directly  contrary  to  it. 
The  old  verbal  contrast  between  two  mythical  entities — 'in- 
stinct* and  'intelligence' — left  an  unfortunate  disposition 
amongst  psychologists  to  separate  the  habits  formed  with  train- 

♦Exccpt  possibly  a  certain  very  small  percentage  of  twin  ptirs. 


198  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

ing  sharply  from  the  instincts  given  by  nature.  In  the  last 
resort  all  habits  are  formed  in  the  service  of  instincts,  and 
the  great  majority  of  human  instincts  function  by  being  modi- 
fied through  training.  Original  nature  and  acquired  nature  do 
not  exist  side  by  side  as  alien  races.  The  latter  is  generated 
from  the  former  and  combines  back  with  it  to  form  new 
hybrids.  The  original  tendencies  which  have  been  listed  in 
these  chapters  are  less  important  in  the  cases  where  they  mani- 
fest themselves  nakedly  as  I  have  described  them  than  in  the 
more  numerous  cases  where,  disguised  and  transformed  by 
training,  they  are  constituent  elements  of  the  eventual  nature 
of  man. 

A  SUMMARY  OF  MAN's  ORIGINAL  NATURE 

These  intricacies,  combined  with  the  insufficiency  of  knowl- 
edge, make  the  tasks  of  summary  and  classification  well-nigh 
impossible. 

It  certainly  is  impossible  to  summarize  the  original  na- 
ture of  man  without  great  risk  of  misleading.  The  inventory 
which  has  been  made  is,  indeed,  itself,  too  condensed  to  do  full 
justice  to  the  elaborate  mental  organization  with  which  man 
meets  his  environment.  But,  accepting  the  risk,  one  may  say 
that  the  original  nature  of  man  is  roughly  what  is  common  to 
all  men  minus  all  adaptations  to  tools,  houses,  clothes,  furni- 
ture, words,  beliefs,  religions,  laws,  science,  the  arts,  and  to 
whatever  in  other  man's  behavior  is  due  to  adaptations  to  them. 
From  human  nature  as  we  find  it,  take  away,  first,  all  that  is 
in  the  European  but  not  in  the  Chinaman,  all  that  is  in  the 
Fiji  Islander  but  not  in  the  Esquimaux,  all  that  is  local  or 
temporary.  Then  take  away  also  the  effects  of  all  products 
of  human  art.  What  is  left  of  human  intellect  and  character 
is  largely  original — not  wholly,  for  all  those  elements  of 
knowledge  which  we  call  ideas  and  judgments  must  be  sub- 
tracted from  his  responses.  Man  originally  possesses  only 
capacities  which  after  a  g^ven  amount  of  education  will  pro- 
duce ideas  and  judgments.     And  from  the  situations  to  which 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND   CLASSIFICATION  I99 

he  originally  responds,  must  also  be  subtracted  all  ideas  and 
judgments;  for,  again,  his  original  tendencies  are  bound  only 
to  direct  sense-presentations  and  feeling^.  To  ideas,  when  he 
gets  them,  he  responds  originally  only  as  he  would  to  some 
direct  presentations  which  they  sufficiently  resemble.  Much, 
perhaps  nine-tenths,  of  what  commonly  passes  for  distinctively 
human  nature  is  thus  not  in  man  originally,  but  is  put  there  by 
institutions  or  grows  there  by  the  interaction  of  the  world  of 
natural  forces  and  the  capacity  to  learn.  To  reduce  the  chance 
of  misleading,  the  original  nature  of  man  may  be  summarized 
also  by  listing  its  essential  differences  from  that  of  the  primates 
in  general.  Consider  the  intellectual  and  moral  equipment  of 
the  monkeys.  Add  to  it  certain  important  social  instincts, 
notably  those  connected  with  the  more  refined  facial  expres- 
sions and  the  approval-disapproval  series.  Increase  in  inten- 
sity and  breadth  the  satisfyingness  of  mental  life  for  its  own 
sake,  widen  the  repertory  of  movements  to  include  human  facial 
expressions,  finger  and  thumb  play  and  articulated  babble,  en- 
rich the  fund  of  indifferent  possibilities  of  secondary  connec- 
tions and  give  them  the  tendency  to  piece-meal  action  in  very 
fine  detail.  The  result  will  be  substantially  the  original  nature 
of  man. 

CRITICISMS 

There  is  wide  disagreement  regarding  the  extent  to  which 
human  thought,  feeling  and  action  are  predetermined  by  nature 
irrespective  of  experience.  According  to  one  extreme  view,  so 
extreme  that  it  might  not  now  be  endorsed  by  any  competent 
psychologist,  nothing  is  given  by  nature  save  the  capacities  to 
feel  elementary  sensations  and  affections  and  to  make  elemen- 
tary muscular  contractions.  The  child  of  himself  responds  at 
random,  and,  except  for  chance,  alike,  to  a  smile  and  to  a  scowl. 
So  far  as  his  own  nature  goes,  he  is  as  likely  to  reach  away 
from  an  object  fixated  as  toward  it ;  as  likely  to  swim,  roll  or 
burrow  as  to  walk ;  and  as  likely  to  begin  to  walk  on  his  hands 
as  on  his  feet. 

The  other  extreme  is  well  represented  by  Stanley  Hall,  who 


aOO  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

credits  the  original  nature  of  man  to-day  with  possessing  in 
some  degree  nearly  or  quite  all  the  tendencies  which  the  race, 
even  down  to  historical  times,  has  acquired.  Hall  says,  for 
instance : — 

"Every  element  has  shaped  and  tempered  it  (the  *psyche* 
or  *ego'  or  'soul'  or  original  nature  of  man).  Its  long  expe- 
rience with  light  and  darkness,  day  and  night,  has  fashioned 
its  rhythm  indelibly.  Heat  and  cold,  the  flickering  of  flame, 
smoke  and  ashes,  especially  since  man  learned  the  control  of 
fire,  have  oriented  it  toward  both  thermal  extremes.  Cloud 
forms  have  almost  created  the  imagination.  Water  and  a  long 
apprenticeship  to  aquatics  and  arboreal  life  have  left  as  plain  and 
indelible  marks  upon  the  soul  as  upon  the  body.  Sky,  wind, 
stars,  storms,  fetichism,  flowers,  animals,  ancient  battles,  ini- 
dustries,  occupations,  and  worship  have  polarized  the  soul  to 
fear  and  affection,  and  created  anger  and  pity."  ['04,  vol.  2, 
p.  69.] 

The  inventory  given  in  the  last  eight  chapters  will  be 
criticised  by  many  who  prefer  to  explain  intellect  and  character 
so  far  as  they  can,  by  a  tabula  rasa  plus  experience.  They 
will  regard  it  as  intolerably  lenient  in  admitting  sheltering, 
specific  fears,  six  or  more  specialized  'pugnacities,'  mastery  and 
submission,  approval  and  scorn,  and  others  of  its  main  features. 

An  attempt  to  refute  this  contention  that  these  forms  of  be- 
havior are  learned  in  the  school  of  life  would  involve  a  survey 
of  details  in  the  behavior  of  man  which  is  utterly  beyond  the 
scope  of  this  volume.  Nor  would  such  a  survey  be  conclusive. 
The  general  frame  of  mind  which  one  gets,  doubtless  in  part 
by  sheer  prejudice,  from  observing  human  behavior  and 
others'  reports  of  it,  directs  his  decision  in  problems  like  these, 
where  crucial  tests  are  lacking :  I  could  not  prove  the  originality 
of  these  tendencies  to  myself.  As  was  made  clear  at  the  outset, 
the  inventory  is  in  large  measure  the  result  of  the  author's  un- 
supported observations  and  intuitions;  and  these  are  doubtless 
often  in  error. 

That  the  inventory  is  much  too  generous  to  original  nature 
may,  however,  be  doubted  in  view  of  two  facts  of  prime  im- 
portance to  one's  general  expectations  from  original  nature. 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND   CLASSIFICATION  20I 

First,  the  inventory  here  is  really  less  generous  than  one 
which  smuggles  in  a  host  of  specialized  tendencies  under  the 
guise  of  general  faculties  such  as  'anger  at  opposition/  'curios- 
ity/ 'imitation'  and  'ideo-motor  action/  If  man  did  origin- 
ally make  any  movement  or  produce  any  sound  which  was 
made  in  his  presence,  the  detail  and  complexity  of  the  pre- 
formed connections  for  this  one  tendency  would  be  greater 
than  for  all  those  listed  in  my  inventory.  The  original  frame- 
work of  human  nature  is  not  simplified  by  replacing  all  the 
special  bonds  involved  in  escape  from  restraint,  overcoming  a 
moving  obstacle,  contra-attack,  violence  at  sudden  pain,  com- 
bat in  rivalry,  maintenance  of  isolation  in  courtship,  and  re- 
sponses to  various  thwartings,  by  one  faculty — an^er — which 
has  the  inherent  power  of  being  aroused  by  very  many  situa- 
tions and  of  expressing  itself  in  very  many  acts.  Unless  this 
anger  is  roused  absolutely  at  haphazard  and  expresses  itself 
just  as  probably  by  one  movement  as  by  any  other,  some  spe- 
cial original  bond  is  required  between  every  one  of  the  elements 
which  can  excite  it  and  every  one  of  the  movements  to  which 
each  such  element  leads.  There  is  no  gain  in  simplicity  by  fab- 
ricating an  agency  like  anger  or  fear  or  sociability  or  curiosity 
to  connect  certain  responses  with  certain  situations.  If  it  is 
not  a  set  of  mechanisms  complex  enough  to  make  the  connec- 
tions, such  a  fabricated  agency  is  nothing  but  a  name  for  their 
possibility.  Giving  a  single  name  to  a  compound  fact  does  not 
simplify  it. 

The  second  fact  of  importance  is  that,  if  we  hold  to  the  mat- 
ter-of-fact question  of  the  unleamedness  of  direct  connections 
between  observed  situations  and  observed  responses,  impartial 
research  has  found  new  instincts  in  almost  every  field.  The 
same  studies  which  destroy  confidence  in  'instinct'  as  a  faculty 
of  all-around  guidance,  or  in  imitation  as  a  tendency  to  create 
bonds  between  an  act  observed  and  the  performance  of  the  act, 
have  lent  support  to  the  expectation  that  many  more  direct  orig- 
inal connections  exist  in  man  than  even  the  most  generous  list 
of  twenty  years  ago  included. 


202  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAJ^ 

The  inventory  given  in  this  volume  will  be  criticised  as  too 
meager  in  one  or  another  detail  by  students  of  various  special 
human  activities  who  have  assumed,  each  for  the  activity  in 
which  he  is  interested,  a  more  elaborate  instinctive  basis  than 
I  have  described.  It  may  be  criticised  as  too  meager  through- 
out by  those  students  of  human  nature  who,  like  Stanley  Hall, 
expect  that  the  traits  acquired  by  primitive  and  even  recent  gen- 
erations of  men  have  left  their  impress  on  original  nature. 

The  following  are  samples  of  such  possible  criticisms : — No 
special  religious  instinct  is  listed  here  in  spite  of  the  univer"- 
sality  of  certain  phenomena.  No  innate  difference  of  response 
to  *right'  from  that  to  Vrong'  acts  is  listed  here,  in  spite  of  the 
opinions  of  a  majority  of  students  of  ethics  and  the  authority 
of  Lloyd  Morgan,  who  says  emphatically : 

"Among  civilized  people  conscience  is  innate.  Intuitions 
of  right  and  wrong  are  a  part  of  that  moral  nature  which  we 
have  inherited  from  our  forefathers.  Just  as  we  inherit  com- 
mon sense,  an  instinctive  judgment  in  intellectual  matters,  so 
too  do  we  inherit  that  instinctive  judgment  in  matters  of  right 
and  wrong  which  forms  an  important  element  in  conscience." 

['85,  p.  307.] 

No  report  is  made  here  of  special  tendencies  to  respond  to  the 

common  animals  which  man  has  had  under  domestication  for 
long  ages  and  which,  according  to  Stanley  Hall,  as  quoted  by 
Kaylor  ['09],  originally  evoke  a  special  affectionate  interest. 
Acher  ['10]  tho  far  from  clear,  seems  to  think  that  digging 
caves  and  underground  passages,  burying  objects,  collecting, 
piling,  throwing  and  hammering  with  stones,  throwing  snow- 
balls, working  and  playing  with  strings,  stabbing  and  cutting 
with  edged  objects,  striking,  whipping  and  pounding  with  ap- 
propriate objects  are  specific  tendencies.  Such  would  be  exv 
pected  to  be  original  tendencies  if  man's  past  history  has  be- 
come ingrained  in  his  inborn  nature,  but  have  been  deliberately 
excluded  from  my  list.  The  tendency  to  play  in  water,  splash- 
ing it  about  with  hands  and  feet,  may  seem  on  grounds  of  uni- 
versality and  of  persistence  in  spite  of  prohibitions  and  pun- 
ishment, more  deserving  of  a  place  amongst  unlearned  responses 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND   CLASSIFICATION  203 

than  attempted  mastery,  kindliness,  and  other  forms  of  be- 
havior included  in  my  list.     Bolton,  for  example,  writes  that : 

"This  universal  love  for  water  seems  not  to  be  due  to  ex- 
perience alone,  for  all  babes  exhibit  it  in  their  earliest  days,  if 
conditions  are  supplied.  It  seems  partly  instinctive  and  of 
more  than  recent  philogenic  [sic]  origin,  and  at  least  suggests 
a  survival  of  the  old-time  life  in  an  aquatic  medium.  This 
is  not  demonstrable,  but  the  weight  of  all  testimony  is  in  that 
direction.  How  else  can  we  account  for  the  passionate  love 
of  children  to  paddle,  to  splash,  ride  on  rafts,  run  out  in  the 
rain ;  for  their  intense  delight  in  swimming,  even  going  without 
meals,  walking  long  distances,  enduring  severe  punishments, 
etc.,  just  for  the  sake  of  being  in  the  water  Many  of  these 
characteristics  are  exhibited  by  adults  when  the  convention- 
alities of  civilized  life  can  be  thrown  off."     ['99,  p.  226.] 

Against  this  last  sample  criticism  I  may  offer  a  brief  note 
of  defense.  It  is,  in  my  opinion,  probable  that  the  love  of 
paddling,  wading  and  swimming  is  wholly  or  in  large  measure 
due  to  the  love  of  'doing  something  and  having  something 
happen  as  a  result,'  and  to  the  increased  freedom  of  the  body 
when  fewer  or  more  comfortable  clothes  are  worn.  Water  is 
enjoyed  in  large  measure  for  the  same  reasons  that  a  sand-pile, 
a  roomful  of  toys  or  a  gymnasium  is  enjoyed.  Merely  being 
wet,  as  when  wrapped  in  a  wet  sheet,  is  certainly  not  the  situa- 
tion producing  the  satisfaction.  The  baby  perhaps  enjoys 
being  naked  in  the  warm  air  even  more  than  taking  his  bath. 
Children  at  the  beach  play  out  of  the  water  with  apparently  as 
great  enjoyment  as  in  it.  The  argument  from  the  common- 
ness of  aquatic  life  in  our  animal  ancestry  which  Bolton  em- 
phasizes is,  I  think,  against  any  specific  original  tendency  in 
man  to  be  drawn  to,  and  to  be  satisfied  by  being  in,  the  water 
per  se.  For  the  early  generalized  primate  stock  from  which 
man  probably  sprang,  probably  instinctively  aimded  immer- 
sion, as  do  the  present  primates.  Robinson  seems  sounder  in 
his  claim  that  the  original  human  response  to  sinking  or  Ijeing 
suspended  in  water,  is  the  generalized-primate  response  to  lack 
of  support.  He  says  that  in  such  a  case  man 
"acts    exactly   as   if   he   were   endeavoring   to   climb.     His 


204  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

hands  are  alternately  thrust  upwards,  with  open  clutching  fin- 
gers, as  if  to  grasp  something  above  his  head,  and  his  legs 
move  in  unison  with  his  arms  in  the  same  way  as  do  those  of 
an  ape  which  is  mounting  a  tree.  That  is  to  say,  the  limbs  on 
the  same  side  are  lifted  coincidently,  as  they  are  when  a  sailor 
is  going  aloft.  There  is  a  remarkable  uniformity  in  the  be- 
havior of  persons  who  cannot  swim  who  find  themselves  sud- 
denly immersed  in  deep  water,  which  also  strongly  suggests 
that  some  instinctive  tendency,  inherent  in,  and  possessed 
by,  all  human  beings,  is  the  prompter  on  such  occasions." 
['93,  p.  728.] 

As  was  stated  in  Chapter  IV,  the  inventory  does  not  in- 
clude all  the  tendencies  which  I  myself  regard  as  unlearned. 
Consequently  I  should  agree  with  many  criticisms  of  its  incom- 
pleteness. Important  tendencies,  such  as  the  general  moral 
sense  referred  to  by  Lloyd  Morgan,  would,  however,  have 
been  included  if  I  had  seen  reason  to  believe  in  their  unlearn- 
edness.  The  detailed  consideration  of  such  proposed  additions 
to  this  inventory  is  out  of  the  question  here. 

Space  permits  only  two  general  principles  of  decision.  One 
is  that  where  some  selfish  interest  or  specialized  doctrine  has 
sought  to  establish  itself  by  pleading  the  existence  of  a  certain 
original  tendency  in  man  as  a  species,  I  have  been  suspicious 
and  perhaps  over-skeptical.  For  example,  the  origin  of  the 
plea  that  the  love  of  ownership  in  the  modern  sense  of  prop- 
erty rights  is  the  instinctive  response  to  material  objects  and 
the  instinctive  situation  evoking  thought  and  labor,  has  possibly 
prejudiced  me  against  it.  The  other  is  entire  repudiation  of 
the  doctrine  that  the  learning  of  past  generations  becomes  the 
unlearned  tendencies  of  the  present.  If  umbrellas  had  been 
invented  five  thousand  generations  ago  and  carried  whenever  it 
rained  by  every  one  of  my  ancestors  since  then,  I  should  still 
not  expect  a  trace  of  an  original  tendency  on  my  part  to  carry 
an  umbrella  on  a  rainy  day.  This  principle  will  be  defended 
in  Chapter  XV. 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND   CLASSIFICATION  205 

THE   CLASSIFICATION   OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES 

There  are  many  rational  classifications  possible  for  man's 
original  equipment,  each  having  certain  advantages.  The  im- 
portant classifications  are : — 

By  the  functions  which  the  tendencies  perform. 

By  the  responses  which  are  their  end-terms. 

By  the  situations  which  are  their  first-terms. 

By  their  origin  or  affinities  in  development. 

Classifications  by  function  are  commonest.  Such  have  the 
advantage  that  the  existing  accounts  of  human  instincts  and 
capacities  can  be  fitted  to  them  easily.  Since  these  accounts 
describe  original  tendencies  by  their  results,  rather  than  by  the 
situations  and  responses  which  compose  them,  this  is  the  only 
one  of  the  four  systems  of  classification  which  they  suggest  and 
the  only  one  by  which  they  can,  as  they  stand,  be  ordered.  This 
is  also  a  disadvantage,  however,  in  that  it  discourages  more 
objective  and  exact  descriptions  of  the  tendencies.  As  a  sample 
we  may  take  that  made  by  Kirkpatrick  and  quoted  below. 
['03,  pp.  51-63.]     It  is  one  of  the  best  of  this  type. 

I.  Individualistic  or  Self-Preservative  Instincts 

Feeding 
Fearing 
Fighting 

II.  Parental  Instincts 

Sex  and  courtship  instincts 
Singing 
Self-exhibition 
Fighting  for  mates 
Nest  building 

III.  Group  or  Social  Instincts 

To  arrange  themselves  in  groups 

To  cooperate  for  the  common  good  in  attack  and 

defense 
Seeking  companionship 

Desiring  the  approval  of  the  group  which  one  joins 
Pride 
Ambition 
Rivalry 


206  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

Jealousy 

Embarrassment 

Shame 

IV.  Adaptive  Instincts 

Tendency  to  spontaneous  movement 

Tendency  for  nervous  energy  to  take  the  same  course 

that  has  just  been  taken 
Tendency  to  imitation 
Tendency  to  play 
Tendency  to  curiosity 

V.  Regulative  Instincts 

The  moral  tendency  to  conform  to  law 

The  religious  tendency  to  regard  a  higher  power 

VI.  Resultant  and  Miscellaneous  Instincts  and  Feelings 
The  tendency  to  collect  objects  of  various  kinds  and 

to  enjoy  their  ownership 

The  tendency  to  construct  or  destroy  and  the  pleasure 
of  being  a  power  or  a  cause 

The  tendency  to  express  mental  states  to  others  of 
the  species  and  to  take  pleasure  in  such  expression 

The  tendency  to  adornment,  and  the  making  of  beatt- 
tiful  things,  and  the  aesthetic  pleasure  of  contem- 
plating such  objects 

No  one,  to  the  author's  knowledge,  has  attempted  to  classify 
man's  tendencies  by  their  situations,  for  instance,  into  original 
behavior  toward  heat,  cold,  light-waves  of  each  length,  and 
so  on  through  an  orderly  grouping  of  all  the  states  of  affairs 
which  originally  move  man,  though  such  a  classification  was 
doubtless  in  the  mind  of  Stanley  Hall  when  he  arranged 
for  his  investigations  of  human  behavior  toward  water,  trees, 
clouds,  frost,  dogs,  and  the  like.  Classification  by  situations 
seems,  at  first  sight,  the  most  scientific  of  all  four,  and  would 
be  an  impetus  toward  careful  analysis  of  and  experimentation 
with  original  tendencies.  To  provoke  by  one's  classification, 
the  questions : — 'What  does  man,  apart  from  training,  do  to 
white,  black,  red  and  yellow  ?  To  a  temperature  of  twenty  de- 
grees, thirty  degrees,  forty  degrees,  fifty  degrees  ?  To  falling, 
being  in  motion,  being  at  rest?     To  wind,  snow,  rain,  stars, 


SUMMARY,    CRITICISM    AND   CLASSIFICATION  207 

sun,  moon  ?  To  human  beings  old,  young,  single,  in  a  crowd  ? 
— is  to  make  at  least  one  step  toward  a  usable  account  of  what 
man's  original  nature  is.  But  such  a  classification  is  very 
laborious  and  becomes  enormously  complicated.  For  example, 
the  same  object  may  be  a  different  situation  in  each  of  its  dis- 
tances, or  with  each  possible  adjunct.  It  also  is  the  case  that 
no  one  of  the  stock  classifications  of  external  states  of  affairs — 
such  as  animal,  vegetable,  mineral,  with  the  further  group- 
ings into  vertebrate,  invertebrate,  and  so  on — is  specially  ger- 
mane to  original  human  behavior.  Such  a  classification  then, 
though  it  would  be,  if  minute  enough,  a  valuable  stimulus 
and  guide  to  research,  would  be  somewhat  pedantic,  as  a  carrier 
of  present  knowledge,  save  in  the  case  of  responses  of  sensi- 
tivity. There  it  is  of  course  already  appropriate  and  already 
occasionally  used. 

Classifications  by  responses  have  the  advantage  of  economy 
over  classifications  by  situations.  For  the  variety  of  human 
original  responses,  though  greater  than  one  is  likely  to  fancy 
until  he  has  tried  to  classify  them,  is  of  an  order  of  magnitude 
far  below  that  of  the  variety  of  situations.  The  stimulus  and 
guidance  to  thought  and  investigation  will  be  about  the  same 
regardless  of  whether  we  order  the  events  of  the  world  and 
ask  what  man  originally  tends  to  do  to  each,  or  order  the 
events  in  man  and  ask  to  what  outside  stimulus  each  is  the 
original  response. 

There  is  very  great  need  for  a  series  of  painstaking  studies 
of  man's  original  responses  to  all  the  important  things,  events, 
qualities  and  relations  in  his  environment.  The  foregoing 
chapters  have  shown  how  soon  one  comes  to  a  stop  when  he 
tries  to  decide  what  man  would,  apart  from  training,  think 
and  feel  and  do  in  response  to  something  rather  than  nothing, 
change  and  monotony,  motion  and  rest,  sour,  bitter,  sweet, 
salt,  black,  white,  red,  blue,  wind,  snow,  rain,  sunshine,  water 
in  each  of  its  common  forms,  the  various  facial  expressions 
and  gestures  and  vocal  sounds  of  man,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

There  is  great  need  also  for  a  similar  series  of  thorough- 


208  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

going  studies  of  just  what  the  situations  are  which,  apart  from 
training,  evoke  the  important  movements  of  man's  muscles  and 
excitements  of  his  neurones.  We  do  not  yet  know  surely  what 
originally  makes  man  laugh  or  cry,  go  to  sleep  and  wake, 
smile  and  scowl,  stiffen  or  tremble,  or  have  the  neurone  actions 
corresponding  to  excitement,  torpor,  elation,  depression,  ten- 
sion or  relief.  We  have  seen,  for  example,  that  laughter  has 
been  the  subject  of  special  study  by  Darwin,  Hecker,  Spencer, 
Gross,  Hall  and  Allin,  Bergson,  Dumas,  Kline,  Sully,  and  many 
others,  but  without  the  attainment  of  a  satisfactory  account  of 
what  originally  (or  for  that  matter,  on  the  whole)  arouses  it. 
Borgquist,  ['06]  examining  the  returns  from  a  questionnaire, 
lists  forty-seven  ( !)  groups  of  causes  of  crying,  but  is  unable 
to  give  an  acceptable  account  of  its  original  provocatives. 

In  proportion  as  such  studies  are  made,  classifications  by 
the  situation  concerned  or  by  the  response  concerned  will  ac- 
company or  replace  classifications  by  the  end  attained. 

Classifications  by  affinities  in  the  development  of  the  race — 
that  is,  by  descent — ^though  hitherto  unconsidered,  perhaps 
offer  the  most  scientific  means  of  grouping  and  ordering  orig- 
inal tendencies.  These  tendencies  have  evolved  in  the  same 
way  that  the  circulation  of  the  blood  or  excretion  by  the  kid- 
neys has  evolved.  Behavior  as  well  as  structure  has  its  an- 
cestral tree.  If  we  knew  perfectly  the  history  of  behavior  in 
the  world,  we  could  start  from  the  responses  of  our  first  pro- 
genitors, the  protozoa;  see  each  new  tendency  appearing  as  a 
slight  variation  or  larger  mutation  on  the  basis  of  the  tenden- 
cies already  present ;  note  which  animals,  and  so  which  tenden- 
cies, had  surviving  offspring;  and  so  group  the  tendencies  of 
man  according  to  their  places  in  a  genealogical  table  of  instincts. 
Such  a  classification  would  be  a  'scientific'  or  'natural'  one  be- 
cause it  would  arrange  man's  instincts  and  capacities  for  pur- 
poses of  study  in  an  order  corresponding  to  their  genesis  in 
the  real  world,  and  so  incite  students  to  note  the  elements  in 
which  heredity  carries  along  man's  equipment  and  the  possi- 
bilities for  its  future  evolution. 


-^ 


chapter  xiv 
The  Anatomy  and  Physiology  of  Original  Tendencies 

Intellect,  character  and  skill  have  their  physiological  basis 
in  the  structure  and  activities  of  the  neurones  and  accessory 
organs  which  compose  the  nervous  system.  The  original 
nature  of  man  in  these  respects  depends  on  the  original  struc- 
ture and  activities  of  the  neurones. 

The  neurones  are  essentially  threads  of  specialized  proto- 
plasm each  connecting  one  part  of  the  body  with  another.  Like 
other  elements  of  the  body,  they  eat,  excrete,  grow  and  die; 
but  their  special  functions  in  the  animal's  life  are  sensiliidty, 
conductk'ity,  and  mqdifiability.  Sensitivity  means  the  capacity 
to  be  excited  to  action  at  one  end  by  one  or  many  agencies. 
Conductivity  means  the  capacity  to  transmit  the  action  thus 
excited,  or  some  consequence  of  it,  to  the  other  end  of  the 
neurone.  Modifiability  means  the  capacity  to  change  in  ac- 
cordance with  use  shortly  to  be  described. 

They  are  arranged  in  an  elaborate  system  of  receptors, 
easily  accessible  to  important  influences  within  and  without  the 
body,  effectors  in  intimate  connection  with  organs  for  action, 
and  connectors  which  lead  from  the  receptors  \o  the  effectors. 
I-lach  neurone  of  this  total  system  has  its  s|)ecial  connections 
with  the  outside  world,  with  the  other  organs  of  the  Ixjdy,  or 
with  other  neurones. 

THE   STRICTURE   OF    THE    NEFRONES 

Figures  4  and  5  show  typical  neurones,  varying  widely  in 
shape,  l)ut  maintaining  the  common  clement  of  a  thread-like 
bcMly  suitable  to  put  one  part  of  the  animal  in  touch  with  other 
parts — to  conduct  stimuli  from  one  jwrt  of  the  Ixxly  to  another 

14  209 


2IO 


THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

rec. 


Fig.    4.     A,     B,    C,    and    D.       Four    neurones.       The    discliarging    end    of    D     is    not 
fully    shown,    being    far    beyond    the    limits    of    the    drawing. 
A   is   after    Kollikcr    ['02,    p.    834],    after   Marenghi. 
IJ    is   after    Kolliker    ['96,    p.    654]. 
C    is    after    Van    Gehuchten    ['00.    vol.    2,    p.     175]. 
1)   is   after   Kolliker   ['96,   p.    349]. 


HE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL    TENUEXCIES  211 


rec. 


B 


Fig.    5.     A.    IS.    aiul    4'.      Three    neurones.      The    (lischarKitiK    rii<U    of    I!    and    C    .irc 
not    shown.    J>cinK    far    hoyond    the    limits    of    tin-    <lr.i»inK. 
11    is   aflir    Harker    ['01,    |>.    70).      C     is    after    Kollikti     IV'.    r-    ■»<>] 


212  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

• — to  let  what  happens  to  one  part  influence  \Vhat  is  done  by 
another  part.  For  convenience  I  have  marked  the  receiving 
end  in  certain  cases  r,  and  the  discharging  or  transmitting  end 
dis.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  the  drawings  the  diameter  of 
the  neurones  is  necessarily  enormously  exaggerated  in  com- 
parison with  their  length.  A  neurone  may  be  two  feet  long, 
but  so  small  in  diameter  that  a  hundred  side  by  side  would 
make  a  line  no  wider  than  one  of  the  lines  in  the  drawings. 

Figures  6  and  7  show  representative  structures  where  the 
receiving  ends  of  the  neurones  arc  in  connection  with  events 
outside  or  inside  the  body. 

Figures  8  and  9  show  representative  structures  where  the 
discharging  ends  of  neurones  are  in  connection  with  muscles. 

Figures  10,  11  and  12  show  representative  synapses  or 
places  of  connection  between  the  discharging  end  of  one  neurone 
and  the  receiving  end  of  another  neurone. 

THE  ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  NEURONES 

Figures  13,  14  and  15  show,  more  or  less  schematically, 
certain  cases  of  the  arrangement  of  neurones  in  series  to  form 
conduction-lines  or  conduction-chains.  The  whole  nervous 
system  is  a  combination  of  millions  of  such  conduction-chains. 
The  neurones  concerned  in  the  behavior  of  a  single  man  prob- 
ably exceed  in  number  by  a  thousand-fold  all  the  telephone 
lines*  in  the  world,  and  a  description  of  the  details  of  their 
arrangement,  if  such  were  known,  would  be  an  almost  endless 
task. 

Four  general  features  of  the  original  arrangement  of  man's 
neurones  may  be  specially  noted.  First,  the  system  as  a  whole 
is  on  the  plan  of  a  system  of  conduction-units  running  from 
parts  of  the  body  where  events  important  to  the  life  of  the 
animal  are  'sensed'  or  allowed  to  impress  him,  to  parts  of  the 
body  by  which  he  'reacts  to'  or  adapts  himself  to,  or  changes 
his  behavior  as  result  of,  these  events,  via  a  very  complex 

*Counting  as  a  "line"  every  wire  length  which  acts  as  a  unit. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  213 


Fic.  6 
A. 
B. 
C. 

n. 

K. 
F. 
G. 


The    receivine    ends   of    various    first    scnsorjr    neurones,    or 
Receiving    cntls    around    the    base    of    hairs    (in    tho    mouse). 


rfccptors. 


Cross    section    of    the    tisMic    shown    in    A. 

Neurone    endings    in    epithelial    cells. 

Endings    around    pigment    cells. 

An    ending    in    the    lining    of    the    oesophagus. 

An   ending   in    a    tactile   corpuscle. 

Endings     in     the     f'af'illn     foliata:     g.     taste-bud*     with     intra-     and     circutn- 

femmule   neurone-endings;    i,   infrrgeninuile   neurone  endings. 
I.      Findings   of    the    rods    and    cones    in    the    retina    of    man 
A,     H.    C.    and     D    are    after     Kdinger     ["06.    p.     42],    C    being    after     Hethc    .ind 
n  being  after   Kberth   and    Hunge.      K   is  after   lUrker   ('01,   p.   362],  after   Ketiius. 
F    is    after    Marker    I'oi.    p.    j86),    after    Smirnow.      G    and    H    are    after    Kolliker 
('03,   p.   38  and  p.   820]. 


i2I4 


THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 


B 


D 


■    -    '-    -      -i    5rj    |..j 


Fig.  7.     The  receiving  ends  of  variovis  first  sensory  neurones  or  receptors  (continued). 

A.  Ends  of  neurones  in  the  Lamina  spiralis  and  organ  of  Corti.  The  ending 
marked    ?    may    be   a    discharging   end. 

B.  Ends    of    the    first    olfactory    neurones    in    the    nose. 

C    and    D.      Taste-buds    and    the    receiving    ends    of    gustatory    neurones. 

E.  A   receiving   end    of   a   neurone    in    the    macula   acustica   sacculi. 

F.  A    sensory    neurone    ending    in    the     skin. 

A  is  after  KoUiker  ['02,  p.  952].  B  is  after  Van  Gehuchten  ['00,  vol.  i,  p. 
244].  C  is  after  Barker  [01,  p.  527],  after  v.  Lenhossek.  D  is  after  Kolliker 
['02,  p.  29].  E  is  after  Barker  ['01,  p.  502],  after  v.  Lenhossek.  F  is 
after    Van    Gehuchten    ['00,    vol.    2,    p.    372]. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  21 5 


Fig.  8. 


Fig.  9. 


.le 


Fig.     8.      'I"h»-     JiscliaruiiiK     <  H'l     >>(    .1     niolor     ticiirom-     Mn     tli.      i:a"»lri>>.  lu mius     im 
"f    the     frog.       ,\MiT     IJarkir.    after     .^cliii  tTi-nlrcWtr.     after     W.     Kulinr. 

Fiii.     II.      The    flischaririiiif    1  ivls    i^f     m  iimru^     iti     strit«c<l     iiiiiscli'*    .•!     llu      white     rat, 


The    flischaririiiK    1  ivls    i^f     m  iimru^ 
.\n(r     \  an    <  i<  hiitlil«ii     (.'. 


strit«c<l     iiiiiscli 


2l6 


THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 


(X\S. 


_J 


Fig.  II. 

Fig.  10.  The  discharging  ends  of  two  neurones  of  the  optic  nerve  (dis.)  in 
synapse  (sy.)  with  portions  of  the  receiving  ends  of  two  neurones  of  the 
optic  lobe.  These  two  neurones  are  shown  in  part  only  in  the  figure.  Their 
axones  (ax.)  continue  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  drawing.  After  Van 
Gehuchten    ['oo,   voL   2,   p.   250]. 

Fig.  II.  The  olfactory  receptors,  or  first  sensory  olfactory  neurones  (ol.),  their 
discharging  ends  (dis.),  in  synapse  (sy.)  with  the  receiving  ends  (r.)  of  seven 
of  the  second  sensory  olfactory  neurones.  The  axones  of  the  latter  (ax.) 
continue  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  drawing.  After  Van  Gehuchten  ['00, 
vol.    2,    p.    287]. 


switchboard  or  set  of  relay  stations  permitting  a  very  great 
variety  of  combinations,  redirections,  shuntings  and  retard- 
ations of  the  conducted  currents.  Second,  in  particular,  there 
are  arrangements  whereby  several  neurones  may  discharge 
into  one  neurone  as  shown  schematically  in  Figure  i6,  and  in 
a  real  case  in  Fig.  17,  so  that  there  c^n  be  a  convergence  of 
stimuli  separately  initiated  toward  a  common  final  path.  Third, 
there  are  arrangements  whereby  one  neurone  may  discharge 
into  several  neurones  as  shown  schematically  in  Figure  18,  and 
in  a  real  case  in  Fig,  19,  so  that  there  may  be  a  distribution  or 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  21/ 


Fic.  12.  A  t>-pical  synapse  in  the  cerebellar  cortex.  The  discharging  end-branch 
of  a  neurone  intertwined  with  and  applied  closely  to  the  surface  of  the 
receiving  end  of  a  Purkinjc  neurone.  The  former  is  shown  in  full  black; 
the  latter  in  stipple.  The  full  detail  of  the  latter  is  not  shown.  After  Johnston 
['06,    p.    241]. 


diffusion  or  varied  transmission  of  one  initial  stimulus  to  many- 
final  paths. 

Fourth,  the  connecting,  or  associative,  or  'switchboard,' 
neurones  form,  especially  in  man.  an  apparatus  for  redirection 
of  stimuli  which  is  almost  infinitely  complex  and  which  is 
extraordinarily  apt  for  varied  transmission,  so  that  the  same 
stimulus  may.  according-  to  minor  coojierating  conditions,  be 
conducted  to  many  different  final  paths,  and  so  that  many  dif- 
ferent stimuli  may,  according  to  some  common  feature,  be 
conducted  to  the  same  final  path.  The  varieties  of  connections 
which  api)ear  in  the  case  of  the  instincts  of  multiform  mental 
and  physical  activity,  curiosity,  manipulation,  visual  explora- 
tion and  vocalization,  and  in  the  millions  of  habits  which 
develop  from  these  instincts,  have  a  fit  mechanism  in  this  very 
sensitive,  very  complex  and  very  modifiable  switchboard  ar- 
rangement of  man's  neurones. 


2l8 


THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 


B 


Fig.  13.  _  A,  B,  C,  and  D.  The  arrangement  of  neurones  in  series  to  form  con- 
duction lines  or  continuous  chains.  A  shows  two  neurones  forming  a  chain 
from  the  skin  (sk.)  to  the  muscle  (m.)  via  the  synapse  (sy.)  in  the  spinal 
cord.  B  shows  three  neurones  forming  a  chain  from  the  skin  (sk.)  to  the 
muscle  (m.)  via  the  synapses  sy.  i  and  sy.  2.  C  shows  at  the  bottom  chains 
such  as  are  shown  in  A  and  B  except  that  the  skin  and  receiving  part  of  the 
first  neurone  are  not  shown.  C  shows,  in  the  upper  three-fourths  of  the  diagram, 
parts  of  other  chains,  leading  from  the  first  or  second  sensory  neurones  to 
the  cortex.  D  shows  parts  of  chains  leading  from  the  cortex  to  the  muscles. 
A  is  from  Van  Gehuchten  ['00,  vol.  i,  p.  517].  B  is  after  Edinger  ['96,  p. 
31].      C   and   D    are  after    Van    Gehuchten    ['00,    vol.    2,    p.    513    and    p.    512]. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY   OF   ORIGINAL    TENDENCIKS 


219 


Fio.  14.  Shows  the  chain  of  neurones  condiictinK  stimuli  from  the  olfactory  sense 
organ  to  tlie  turnu  Aninionis.  ( r .  a.)  and  ihcnci-  in  v,irnms  (lirectmns  to  make 
further  connections.  The  neurones  ni.irkril  i,  j  and  .?  desiKnair  in  order  the 
first  three  links  of  this  chain,  the  synai)sc-  iK-twcen  the  tirst  nnil  the  sccoikI  sett 
of  neurones,  the  S(Con<l  and  the  third  and  s«j  on  beiuK  marked  .Si,  Sii.  and  .Si  11. 
The  neurones  of  x^oup  2  shown  cut  oil  at  ii.  r.  are  neurones  which  ainduci 
across  to  the  other  hemisphere  of  the  hrain.  .\fter  \'an  (iehuchtrn  i'oo,  vol.  j. 
p.    .J941. 

Ik;.  15.  Shows  part  of  the  chain  of  neurones  which,  l)eKinninK  in  the  rods  ami 
cones  of  the  retina,  continue  to  the  occipital  lobe  of  the  hrain.  The  last  two 
links  in  the  chain  are  shown  here — the  neurones  which  form  the  sriiviry  i>arl 
of  the  ofitic  nerve  receiving  stimuli  in  the  retina  and  discharginK  across 
synapses  in  the  corpora  cpiadriitemina,  external  geniculate  l)odies  and  optic 
layer  to  neurones  which  conduct  thence  to  (lie  occipital  IoIk-.  After  \'an 
Gehuchten    [00,    vol.    ••,    |>.    -'.s.tj. 


220 


THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 


> 


M P- 

FlC.     l6.      Schema    of    Convergence. 


Fig.    17.     Convergence   in   the    Olfaciory   Receptors. 


Fig.    18.     Schema    of    Distribution. 


Fig.    19.     Distribution    in    a    Spinal    Reflex    Path. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  221 

An  original  bond  between  a  situation  and  a  response  in 
human  behavior  has  as  its  physiological  basis  an  original  ease 
of  conduction  of  the  physiological  action  aroused  in  certain 
neurones  toward  a  certain  final  path  rather  than  toward  any 
other.  The  original  arrangement  of  the  neurones  whereby 
the  discharging  end  of  a  given  neurone  A,  is  near  to  the  receiv- 
ing ends  of  B,  C,  D,  etc..  and  remote  from  the  receiving  ends 
of  X,  Y,  Z,  etc.,  is  the  main  determinant  of  what  resix:)nses  of 
sensation  and  movement  the  given  situation  will  provoke. 
Original  connections  in  behavior  depend  in  large  part  upon  the 
original  location  of  neurones  in  the  brain — the  original  dis- 
tances between  the  discharging  ends  of  the  neurones  severally 
and  the  receiving  ends  of  all  others. 

They  may  depend  upon  other  facts  also.  The  synapses 
between  the  discharging  end  of  A  and  the  receiving  ends  of 
B,  C,  and  D  might  conceivably  be  identical,  so  far  as  concerns 
the  distances  A.,  to  B  .  A,,  to  C,,  and  A^-  to  D,  ;  and  vet 

dis  r  dis  r  Q'S  » 

the  ease  of  conduction  might  be  very  different  in  the  three 
cases.  Just  as  three  membranes  may  vary  in  permeability  by  a 
certain  substance,  or  as  three  joints,  one  of  copper,  one  of  gold 
and  one  of  rubljer,  would  vary  in  resistance  to  the  electric  cur- 
rent, so  the  three  synapses — A^B,  A->-C  and  A->-D — may 
vary  in  resistance  to  the  stimuli  conducted  by  A.  otherwise  than 
by  differences  in  mere  distance.  If  there  were  such  variations 
in  the  permeability  of  'synapses  of  equal  distances."  and  if  they 
were  original  in  man.  they  would  l)e  a  second  determinant  of 
the  path  that  any  given  stimulus  would  take — and  so  of  the 
response  that  any  given  situation  would  originally  provoke. 
Proximity  of  neurones  in  space,  then,  there  must  lie  as  a  l)asis 
for  connections  in  l)ehavior;  a  nerve  impulse  cannot  jump  an 
inch  from  the  discharging  end  of  one  to  the  receiving  end  of 
another.  Permeability  of  some  s|)ecial  sort  may  Ix'  an  addi- 
tional requirement. 


222  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

SENSITIVITY   AND   CONDUCTIVITY 

About  the  detailed  physiology  of  sensitivity — the  capacity 
of  a  neurone  to  be  aroused  by  certain  events  at  its  receiving 
end  (or,  much  less  frequently,  along  its  course) — ^very  little  is 
known.  That  little  is  not  specially  relevant  to  our  purpose. 
The  same  is  true  of  conductivity  within  a  single  neurone. 
\A'hat  the  action  of  a  neurone  is,  whereby  something  happening 
at  the  receiving  end  makes  something  happen  at  the  discharg- 
ing end,  is  unknown ;  and  the  acceptance  of  one  or  another  of 
the  various  present  hypotheses  would  not  alter  any  conclusion 
to  be  stated  here.  Conductivity  over  a  chain  of  neurones  in- 
volves obviously  sensitivity,  discharge,  and  conduction  across 
the  synapses,  as  well  as  mere  conductivity  within  the  neurones 
taken  singly.  That  there  is  some  specialized  action  correspond- 
ing to  the  discharge  and  conduction  across  the  synapse  seems 
probable,  but  what  it  is  cannot  be  affirmed. 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  THE   CAPACITY   TO  LEARN   AND  OF 
READINESS 

The  modifiability  of  a  neurone  might  consist  in  changes  in 
it: — (i)  whereby  its  form  was  altered  so  that  its  receiving 
end  was  in  different  spatial  relations  to  the  stimulating  agents, 
or  so  that  its  discharging  end  was  in  different  spatial  relations 
to  the  neighboring  receiving  ends;  (2)  whereby  its  receiving 
end  was  more  or  less  sensitive  to  forces  acting  on  it;  (3) 
whereby  it  offered  more  or  less  resistance  as  a  conductor,  or 
otherwise  changed  its  conducting  action;  (4)  whereby  it  dis- 
charged in  a  different  way,  or  (5)  whereby  other  differences 
were  produced. 

Its  modifications  in  the  course  of  growth  obviously  include 
the  first  sort — alterations  of  its  spatial  relations, — as  is  shown 
roughly  in  Figures  20  and  21.  So  also  do  the  modifications 
produced  in  it  by  certain  diseases.  What  modifications  are 
produced  in  a  neurone  by  its  own  ordinary  activities  are  mat- 
ters largely  for  hypothesis. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY   OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES 


22T, 


Fic.  20. 


Fig.  31. 

Frc.  20.  Immature  neurones  in  a  seclion  of  half  of  tin-  spinal  cord  of  a  chick 
at  the  third  day  of  inciihation.  After  \'an  (ichiichtrn  ('oo,  vid.  i,  p.  j8jJ, 
after  Kam6n  y  C'ajal.  'i'hr  neurones  shown  Inn-  will  grow  to  a  complexity 
equal  to  that  of  those  shown  in  Figs.  4  ami  5.  'Hie  ends  of  the  five  neurones 
shown  under  s.  which  run  toward  the  centre  of  the  diauram  will  grow  into 
the  sninal  cord  to  form  lonx  axones  with  many  ciillaterals  each  hranching  in 
an  elaborate  terminal  arbori/ation  in  close  proxinntv  to  Mime  associative  or 
motor  neurone;  the  other  ends  of  these  neurones  will  grow  out  to  the  surface 
of    the    skin    or    elsewhere. 

The  four  neurones  at  the  left  of  m.  will  grow  out  into  the  IxMly  to  connect 
with  certain  muscle  fibres.  The  other  neurones  will  also  gfow  in  such  a 
way  that  their  ends  assinne  si>ecial  space  relations  to  the  ends  of  other  sensory 
or  motor  neurones.  The  two  en<ls  of  neurones  at  g.  arc  growing  t»arts  or 
growing    'cones.' 

Fig.  31.  Neurones  in  various  stages  of  growth.  A  very  early  stage  is  shown  at 
a:  a  somewhat  later  stage  at  b:  "neurones  whose  receiving  en<ls  have  sotne- 
thing  like  their  eventual  complexity  are  shown  at  c.  After  v.  l.enhossek  l"g.^. 
p.    9iJ 


224  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

The  safest  provisional  hypothesis  to  make  about  the  action 
of  the  neurones  singly  is,  in  my  opinion,  that  they  retain  the 
modes  of  behavior  common  to  unicellular  animals  so  far  as  is 
consistent  with  the  special  conditions  of  their  life  as  elements 
in  man's  nervous  system.  This  conservative  hypothesis,  to- 
gether with  the  unanalyzed  facts  of  sensitivity,  conductivity 
and  the  general  facts  of  the  arrangement  of  neurones,  gives  a 
fair  working  hypothesis  concerning  the  physiological  basis  of 
the  original  satisfiers  and  annoyers,  and  of  the  capacities  for 
learning  and  remembering — that  is,  of  the  laws  of  exercise  and 
effect.* 

The  hypothesis  is,  very,  very  briefly, .as  follows:  The  life- 
processes  of  a  neurone  are  (i)  eating,  (2)  excreting  waste 
products,  (2)  growing,  (4)  iDeing  sensitive,  conducting  and 
discharging  and  (5)  movement.  The  movements  or  changes 
of  position  made  by  it  are  restricted  to  its  ends.  It  may  then 
be,  according  to  its  physiological  state,  more  or  less  ready  or 
unready,  disposed  or  indisposed,  to  cat,  to  excrete,  to  grow,  to 
play  its  part  in  receiving  and  passing  on  a  stimulus,  and  to 
move.  Activity  in  receiving  and  passing  on  a  stimulus  makes 
it  ready  to  eat.  When  its  life-processes,  other  than  movement, 
are  going  on  well,  it  continues  whatever  movement-activity 
it  is  engaged  in ;  when  its  life-processes,  other  than  movement, 
are  interfered  with,  it  manifests  whatever  movements  such 
interference  evokes  until  the  interference  ceases.  The  move- 
ments possible  for  it  are  slight  extensions  or  retractions  at  its 
ends  (including  the  ends  of  its  collaterals). 

The  neurone  then  li\es  much  as  would  an  amoeba  or  para- 

*The  attempt  made  here  to  give  a  physiology  of  the  adaptive  element 
in  learning — of  modifiability  in  favor  of  the  satisfying — is  too  premature 
and  speculative  to  be  of  much  value ;  and  the  discussion  of  it,  without 
reliance  upon  technical  acquaintance  with  the  physiology  of  the  neurones 
and  the  behavior  of  the  micro-organisms,  is  necessarily  inadequate.  I 
have  abbreviated  it  as  much  as  is  consistent  with  giving  the  reader  some 
idea  of  how  the  complexities  of  human  behavior  may  be  found  in  the 
end  to  reduce  to  compounds  of  very  simple  behavior-series  in  the 
neurones.  The  reader  who  finds  it  puzzling  or  uninstructive  may  pass 
by  the  rest   of  this  chapter. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY   OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  22$ 

mecium  which  had  been  differentiated  to  make  conduction  its 
special  trade  and  which  had  become  fixed  immovably  save  for 
a  few  extremities  here  and  there.*  For  the  life-processes  of 
eating,  excretion  and  growth  to  go  on  well  (or  to  be  interfered 
with)  means  much  the  same  in  the  case  of  the  neurone  as  in 
the  case  of  any  single-celled  animal. 

For  the  life-process  of  receiving  and  passing  on  a  stimulus 
to  go  on  well  means  that  only  such  stimuli  are  being  received 
as  can  be  discharged,  and  that  enough  stimuli  are  being  re- 
ceived and  discharged  to  prevent  any  inner  disturbance  due  to 
the  lack  of  such  activity.  Interference  with  the  life-process  of 
receiving  and  passing  on  a  stimulus  may  be  by  the  reception  of 
stimuli  too  strong  or  too  long-continued  to  be  discharged, 
or  by  inner  disturbances  which  adequate  conductive  activity 
would  relieve. 

If  this  hypothesis  proved  to  be  correct,  conduction  by  a 
conduction  unit  ready  to  conduct  would  be  restated  as  the  re- 
lief of  interference  with  the  life-processes  of  the  neurones  con- 
cerned— relief  by  the  destruction  of  an  inner  disturbance  by 
means  of  adequate  conductive  activity.  For  a  conduction  unit 
ready  to  conduct  not  to  conduct,  would  mean  that  such  an 
inner  disturbance  remained.  Conduction  by  a  conduction  unit 
unready  to  conduct  would  be  restated  as  interference  with  the 
life-processes  of  the  neurones  concerned  by  the  receipt  of  a  too 
intense  or  too  long-continued  stimulus. 

If  this  hypothesis  proved  to  be  correct,  the  capacity  to  learn 
and  remember  could  find  its  physiological  basis  in  the  move- 
ment-process of  the  neurones.  A  modifiable  neurone  would, 
by  the  hypothesis,  maintain  that  movement-action — and  so 
those  spatial  relations  with  other  neurones — whereby  its  life- 
processes  other  than  movement  went  on  well.  Now,  for  the 
neurone's  life-processes  of  receiving  and  transmitting  stimuH 
to  go  on  well  in  a  given  state  of  affairs  is  the  physiological  fact 

*Just  that  is  essentially  what  has  happened   in  the  differentiation  of 
nerve-cells  from  generalized  body-cells. 
IS 


2a6  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

that  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  state  of  affairs  is  satisfying 
to  the  animal.  For  this  conductive  process  in  the  neurones  to 
be  interfered  with  in  a  given  state  of  affairs  is  the  physiological 
fact  that  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  state  of  affairs  is 
annoying.*  By  the  hypothesis,  in  the  latter  case  the  neurones 
move  so  as  to  hold  some  new  spatial  relation  to  neighboring 
neurones.  The  neurones  are,  then,  by  the  hypothesis,  widen- 
ing the  gaps  in  those  synapses  conduction  across  which  causes 
discomfort;  are  trying  other  spatial  relations;  and  are  main- 
taining those  spatial  relations — preserving  the  intimady  of 
those  synapses — conduction  across  which  causes  satisfaction. 

Each  neurone,  by  so  moving  as  to  preserve  a  healthy  con- 
dition in  its  workings  as  a  receiving  and  transmitting  organ, 
would  be  giving  up  those  synaptic  bonds  conduction  across 
which  produced  annoying  states  of  affairs,  and  maintaining 
those  which  produced  satisfaction.  The  law  of  effect  would 
be  a  secondary  result  of  the  ordinary  avoiding  reaction  of  uni- 
cellular organisms  cooperating  as  elements  in  the  animal's  brain. 
The  acquired  connections  of  man's  intellect  and  character 
would  be  the  result  of  the  unlearned  tendencies  of  his  neurones 
to  do  nothing  different  when  all  was  well  with  them  and  to 
perform  whatever  different  acts  were  in  their  repertories  when 
their  life-processes  were  disturbed.  The  learning  of  an  animal 
would  be  the  product  of  the  unlearned  responses  of  its  neurones. 

In  the  above  argument  I  have,  chiefly  to  make  a  somewhat 

*The  student  who  is  interested  in  comparing  the  hypothesis  presented 
here  with  others  to  the  same  purpose  will  find  an  admirably  clear  and 
systematic  discussion  of  many  of  the  early  theories  of  the  physiological 
basis  of  desirability  and  intolerability  in  Chapters  IV  and  V  of  Marshall 
1'93].  This  author  uses  the  terms  pleasure  and  pain  to  include,  not  only 
certain  special  voluptuous  sensations  and  the  sensations  due  to  burns, 
pricks,  inflammations  and  the  like,  but  also  the  feeling-tone  of  any  exper- 
ience, whereby  a  man,  apart  from  any  objective  feature  of  the  experience, 
would  judge  it  to  be  intrinsically  desirable  or  undesirable.  His  problem 
is  therefore,  specifically,  that  of  discovering  the  physiological  basis  of  the 
conscious  states  which  would,  in  and  of  themselves,  be  satisfiers  and 
annoyers.  But  the  theories  which  he  describes  and  the  evidence  which 
he  discusses  bear  on  the  wider  problem. 


THE   PHYSIOLOGY   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  227 

subtle  theory  easier  to  understand,  assumed  movement — spatial 
change — as  a  life-process  of  the  neurones.  But  any  process 
whereby  the  neurone  changes  the  nature  of  its  connections  with 
other  neurones  will  serve  all  the  purposes  of  the  argument.  The 
reader  may,  for  instance,  substitute  appropriate  terms  referring 
to  'the  greater  or  less  permeability  of  a  membrane'  in  every 
case  where,  in  the  last  two  pages,  I  have  used  'movement  of  the 
end  of  a  neurone  in  one  direction  or  in  another.'  The  essence 
of  my  account  of  the  physiological  mechanism  of  learning  may 
be  stated  as  follows,  independently  of  any  hypothesis  about 
the  power  of  the  ends  of  a  neurone  to  move.  "The  connections 
formed  between  situation  and  response  are  represented  by  con- 
nections between  neurones  and  neurones  whereby  the  disturb- 
ance, or  neural  current,  arising  in  the  former  is  conducted  to 
the  latter  across  their  synapses.  The  strength  or  weakness  of 
a  connection  means  the  greater  or  less  likelihood  that  the  same 
current  will  be  conducted  from  the  former  to  the  latter  rather 
than  to  some  other  place.  The  strength  or  weakness  of  the 
connection  is  a  condition  of  the  synapse.  What  condition  of 
the  synapse  it  is  remains  a  matter  for  hypothesis.  Close  con- 
nection might  mean  protoplasmic  union,  or  proximity  of  the 
neurones  in  space,  or  a  greater  permeability  of  a  membrane,  or 
a  lowered  electrical  resistance,  or  a  favorable  chemical  condi- 
tion of  some  other  sort.  Let  us  call  this  undefined  condition 
which  parallels  the  strength  of  a  connection  between  situation 
and  response  the  intimacy  of  the  synapse.  Then  the  modifia- 
bility  or  connection-changing  of  a  neurone  equals  its  power  to 
alter  the  intimacy  of  its  synapses." 

"A  neurone  modifies  the  intimacy  of  its  synapses  so  as  to 
keep  intimate  those  by  whose  intimacy  its  other  life-processes 
are  favored  and  to  weaken  the  intimacy  of  those  whereby  its 
other  life-processes  are  hindered."  When  its  feeding,  excre- 
tory and  conducting  processes  are  going  on  well,  it  leaves 
whatever  condition  obtains  at  the  synapse,  undisturbed.  When, 
on  the  contrary,  feeding,  excretion  or  conduction  is  disturbed, 
it  makes  whatever  changes  in  its  synapses  it  is  caimble  of. 


228  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

Thus  certain  synaptic  intimacies  are  strengthened  and  others 
weakened,  the  result  being  the  modifiabihty  of  the  animal  as  a 
whole  which  we  call  learning.  The  simple  avoiding-reaction 
of  the  protozoa,  inherited  by  the  neurones  of  the  brain,  is  the 
basis  of  the  intelligence  of  man.  The  learning  of  an  animal 
is  an  instinct  of  its  neurones.* 

THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  DELAY  AND  TRANSITORINESS  IN 
ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES 

The  physiological  basis  of  the  delay  of  certain  original 
tendencies  till  various  periods  after  the  beginning  of  the  indi- 
vidual's life,  and  of  the  waning  of  transitory  instincts  in  cases 
where  they  have  not  been  preserved  as  habits  by  adequate  en- 
couragement, is  the  waxing  and  waning  of  certain  spatial 
arrangements  of  neurones,  of  lowered  resistances  at  certain 
synapses,  and  of  the  readiness  and  unreadiness  of  certain 
neurones  to  receive  and  transmit  stimuli. 

Neurones  grow,  so  that  the  discharging  end  of  neurone  A 
may  be  very  much  nearer  the  receiving  end  of  neurone  B  at  the 
age  of  ninety  months  than  it  was  at  the  age  of  nine.  They 
may,  and  probably  do,  abort  in  part,  so  that  by  age  and  disuse 
neurone  C  may  be  in  less  intimate  synapse  with  neurone  D  at 
ninety  months  than  at  nine.  Whatever,  other  than  spatial 
proximity,  makes  a  synapse  intimate,  may  similarly  wax  and 
wane  by  the  mere  impulse  of  inner  growth.  The  neurones  that 
were  disturbed  by  failure  to  conduct  in  childhood  may,  by  the 
mere  inner  changes  of  maturity,  come  in  youth  to  be  disturbed 
by  conduction.  What  is  the  healthful  amount  of  stimulus  for 
certain  neurones  in  youth  may  in  old  age  be  an  intolerable  bur- 
den to  them. 

The  rise  of  new  original  tendencies  year  by  year  after  birth 
does  not,  probably,  imply  the  addition  by  growth  of  new  neu- 
rones.    That  process  is  completed  or  nearly  completed  very 

*The  mdtter  quoted  above  is  from  the  author's  Animal  Intelligence 
['ii,  p.  246  f.]. 


THE    PHYSIOLOGY    OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  229 

early.*  Nor  does  the  loss  of  transitory  instincts  probably 
imply,  as  a  rule,  the  death  and  absorption  of  once  active  neu- 
rones. These  commonly  remain,  but  with  different  or  inactive 
connections. 

The  physiological  parallel  most  often  assigned  to  the 
development  of  delayed  instincts  and  capacities  in  educational 
literature,  is  the  medidlation  of  the  neurones  concerned  there- 
with. Thus  Hall,  in  summarizing  Flechsig's  view,  says  that 
'medullation,  myelinization,  or  the  sheathing  of  the  fibres  .  .  . 
is  generally  held  to  be  the  surest  concomitant  of  the  develop- 
ment of  their  function.'  ['04,  vol.  i,  p.  109]  Burk  says: 
"The  conclusion  has  now  passed  into  general  acceptance  that 
when  a  nerve  fibre  acquires  its  fatty  sheath,  or  becomes  medul- 
lated  as  is  said,  it  is  then  functionally  mature.  .  .  .  The  sig- 
nificance of  medullation,  once  established,  becomes  a  key  of 
great  value  in  determining  the  order  in  which  the  various 
parts  of  the  nervous  system  develop."     ['98,  p.  12  f.] 

This  hypothesis — that  the  formation  of  the  medullary  or 
myelin  sheath  about  the  neurone  along  the  part  of  its  course 
where  such  a  sheath  is  usual,  is  necessary  in  order  that  the 
neurone  be  able  to  function — seems  from  later  work  to  be 
gratuitous  and  improbable.  There  is  no  need  to  suppose  that 
the  absence  of  a  myelin  sheath  debars  a  neurone  from  function- 
ing or  that  its  presence  gives  much  aid  thereto.  None  of  the 
neurones  in  invertebrates  have  the  myelin  sheath.  It  is  most 
probably  a  means  of  better  insulation,  Watson,  who  subjected 
the  question  to  experimental  tests  in  the  case  of  the  rat,  found 
no  such  correlation  between  the  progress  of  medullation  and 
progress  in  intellect  and  skill,  and  says,  in  conclusion:  "Why 
one  tract  should  become  metlullated  sooner  than  another  we  can 
at  present  answer  in  the  case  of  the  man  no  better  than  in  the 
case  of  the  rat."     ['03,  p.  122] 

♦Donaldson   ('95.  pp.   160.   161   and  171)   estimates  that  the  process  is 
completed  as  early  as  the  third  foetal  month. 


chapter  xv 
The  Source  of  Original  Tendencies 

The  original  nature  of  a  man  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  the 
union  of  germ  and  ovum  from  which  he  develops.  In  that 
union  his  individual  life  begins. 

Hence,  the  first  step  in  a  straightforward  attempt  to  find 
out  the  origin  and  development  of  unlearned  tendencies  would 
be  to  find  out  to  what  features  in  the  fertilized  ovum  each  was 
due.  The  originating  forces,  whatever  they  are,  have  pro- 
duced the  instincts  and  capacities  of  the  animal  by  producing 
these  substances  and  structures  in  the  germs.  Knowledge  of 
the  constitution  of  the  germs  is  needed  if  we  are  to  trace  his 
nature  to  its  source.  That  knowledge,  unfortunately,  is  for 
the  most  part  lacking.  No  biologist  could  tell  from  examining 
a  fertilized  ovum  what  instincts  it  would  in  its  later  life  dis- 
play, nor  could  he  tell  from  full  knowledge  of  an  animal's 
instincts  what  corresponding  features  to  expect  in  its  germ 
cells.  Of  not  a  single  instinct  do  we  know  the  germ  basis  or 
determiner. 

Science  is  consequently  forced  for  the  present  to  argue  from 
present  behavior  to  ancestral  behavior  with  only  the  vaguest 
knowledge  of  the  germs  which  are  the  connecting  link.  The 
question  has  to  be  framed  concerning  what  in  our  ancestors 
produces  a  given  tendency  in  us,  irrespective  of  the  middle 
stage,  the  facts  in  the  germs  which  carry  the  fund  of  tendencies 
from  them  to  us. 

The  familiar  answers  to  this  question  are,  as  is  well  known, 
(i)  that  unlearned  tendencies  are  inherited  habits,  the  perpet- 
uation as  a  gift  of  what  was  once  acquired  by  experience,  and 
(2)  that  they  are  inherited  germinal  variations,  produced  by 

230 


THE  SOURCE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  23 1 

subtle  forces,  not  by  the  learning  of  individuals,  and  perpet- 
uated because  the  individuals  possessing  them  produced  more, 
or  longer-lived,  offspring. 

THE  HYPOTHESIS  OF  THE  TRANSMISSION  OF  ACQUIRED  TRAITS 

Whether  we  are  by  nature*  what  our  parents  were  by  nature 
alone  or  what  they  were  by  nature  plus  training,  may  be 
argued  from  two  points  of  view.  The  probability  of  the  latter! 
event  may  be  estimated  from  our  knowledge  of  the  physical' 
relations  between  parents  and  offspring;  or  its  actual  occurrence! 
may  be  determined  from  evidence.  It  is  beyond  the  purpose 
of  this  book  to  present  even  a  summary  of  such  arguments  pro 
and  con.  Indeed,  except  for  the  need  of  a  statement  limited 
to  the  inheritance  of  acquired  mental  traits,  it  would  be  unwise 
to  add  a  new  chapter  to  the  voluminous  discussions  already  in 
print,  t 

Some  matters  seem  fairly  sure. 

1.  Whatever  changes  occur  in  the  nature  of  the  chromatic 
substance  in  the  nuclei  of  the  germs  and  ova  of  the  parents  will 
influence  the  original  nature  of  the  offspring,  for  the  nuclei  of 
the  germ  and  ovum  are  the  original  nature  of  the  offspring. 
And  nothing  else  will. 

2.  The  germs  and  ova  are  made  directly  from  the  germ 
plasm  (ovaries  and  testes)  of  the  parents,  not  from  their  bodies 
in  general.  Just  as  the  bone  marrow  makes  blood,  or  the  cells 
of  the  neural  tube  the  nervous  system,  so  the  germ  plasm  makes 
the  germs  and  ova. 

3.  The  cells  which  are  specialized  to  form  the  germ  plasm 
— that  is,  to  do  the  work  of  producing  the  ne.xt  generation — 

*It  will  be  observed  that  antenatal  influences  from  the  mother  are  ex- 
cluded from  the  discussion.  A  mother  may,  for  instance,  acquire  diseases 
and  transmit  them  through  the  blood,  but  transmit  them  by  infecting  the 
growing  child,  not  by  altering  the  quality  of  its  original  nature. 

tFor  an  admirable  summary  of  the  facts,  see  J.  A.  Thomson*s  Heredity, 
pp.   164-249. 


232  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

are  set  off  and  begin  their  more  or  less  separate  careers  long- 
before  the  individual  is  born. 

4.  The  line  of  inheritance  is  thus  from  germs  to  germ 
plasm  to  germs  to  germ  plasm  and  so  on. 

5.  The  germ  plasm  is  connected  with,  and  related  to,  other 
structures  in  the  body,  including  those  of  the  central  nervous 
system,  in  no  more  intimate  way  than  are  the  other  structures 
amongst  themselves.  The  nervous  system  influences  the  grow- 
ing germ  or  ovum  as  it  may  influence  the  cells  of  the  liver  or 
heart  or  skin. 

6.  No  known  mechanism  exists  by  which  such  alterations 
of  the  brain's  structure  or  of  the  quality  of  the  brain's  tissues 
as  would  correspond  to  changes  in  intellect  and  character, 
might  produce  in  the  germs  changes  fitted  themselves  to  be- 
come, in  the  adult  form,  similar  structures  or  qualities  to  those 
which  caused  them.* 

7.  The  acquisition  of  specific  mental  traits  by  an  individual 
seems  thus  unlikely  to  modify  his  germs  so  as  to  reproduce  the 
specific  trait  acquired.  With  very  general  traits  (such  as 
mental  vigor  or  weakness,  health  or  degeneracy)  the  case  might 
well  be  different.  Such  general  mental  traits  might  be  corre- 
lated with  bodily  conditions  which  would  include  the  germ 
plasm  as  well  as  any  other  parts  of  the  body.  The  correlation, 
however,  is  by  no  means  perfect.  As  to  precise  measures  of 
how  far  acquired  conditions  of  general  health  involve  changes 
in  the  germ  plasm  and  of  how  far  such  changes  influence  mental 
qualities  in  the  offspring,  there  are  none. 

The  obvious  way  to  settle  the  question  is  not  by  contemp- 
lating these  inferences  from  present  knowledge  of  the  process 
of  development,  but  rather  by  making  the  crucial  experiment 

*It  should,  however,  be  said  that  Professor  Jacques  Loeb  has  suggested 
(Monist,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  481-493)  that  in  some  cases  of  instinctive  mental 
traits  the  organic  basis  may  be  the  presence  of  some  chemical  substance, 
and  that  in  these  cases  the  change  during  life  in  the  nature  or  amount 
of  such  substance  might  directly  affect  the  germs  so  as  to  perpetuate 
the  acquisition.  This  possibility  is,  so  far  as  human  mental  traits  are 
concerned,  a  matter  of  speculation. 


THE  SOURCE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  233 

of  letting  animals  acquire  some  mental  traits  and  observing  the 
nature  of  the  offspring.  No  such  experiments  of  a  decisive 
nature  have  been  made.  If,  for  generation  after  generation, 
mice  were  offered  palatable  food  always  in  the  shape  of  yellow 
cubes  smelling  of  grease  and  unpalatable  food  always  in  the 
shape  of  white  balls  smelling  of  cheese,  were  kept  in  a  cage  so 
arranged  that  on  going  into  a  certain  alley  they  always  received 
an  electric  shock,  and  were  otherwise  given  a  chance  to  learn 
certain  habits,  an  observer  could  measure,  for  generation  after 
generation,  the  quickness  of  formation  of  these  habits  and 
detect  the  slightest  improvement.  Even  so  few  as  ten  or 
twenty  generations  would  thus  give  a  probable  answer  to  this 
fundamental  question. 

The  popular  idea  of  evidence  on  the  question  is  as  follows : 
"A  studied  mathematics  and  became  a  great  mathematician. 
So  was  his  son.  His  father's  studies  must  have  helped  to  make 
him  so."  The  retort  is  of  course  easy:  "Why  was  the  father 
a  great  mathematician  ?  Because  of  his  original  nature.  Why 
was  the  son?  Because  his  father's  original  nature  made  him 
so."  We  shall  never  get  on  with  this  question  by  begging  it. 
The  mere  fact  of  family  similarity  never  need  imply  the  inherit- 
ance of  parental  acquisitions. 

A  more  advanced  type  of  argument  adduces  the  growth  of 
some  mental  trait  in  the  species  as  a  whole.  For  instance  it  is 
said :  "How  can  the  growth  of  language  be  explained  save  by 
supposing  that  the  constant  exercise  of  the  mind  in  this  respect 
has  resulted  in  ever-increasing  facility  in  offspring  until  the 
few  shouts  and  mutterings  and  wails  of  primitive  man  have 
become  the  complicated  si)eech  of  today." 

The  retort  is  as  easy  as  before :  "Language  has  g^rown  be- 
cause on  the  whole  those  with  the  most  inborn  capacity  for  it 
lived  and  begot  their  like  while  those  with  the  least  inborn 
capacity  died  and  left  few  or  no  heirs  to  their  linguistic 
poverty."  Not  the  inheritance  of  acquisitions,  but  the  selection! 
of  those  who  could  acquire !  ^ 

The  field  of  animal  instincts  has  been  well  canvassed  by 


234  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

biologists  in  search  of  light  upon  the  general  question.  The 
gist  of  their  discoveries  is:  (i)  that  many  instincts  are  cer- 
tainly not  the  result  of  a  summation  of  acquisitions,  e.  g.,  those 
that  appear  only  once  in  a  lifetime.  (2)  Most  instincts  are 
generalized  rather  than  specific,  though  most  acquired  habits 
are  specific  rather  than  generalized.  But  a  specific  habit  in- 
herited should  give  a  specific  instinct.  Thus  instead  of  a  num- 
ber of  fears  of  special  enemies  such  as  cats,  hawks,  skunks,  etc., 
chicks  have  a  general  alarm  at  strange  and  impressive  objects. 
(3)  Useless  instincts  are  very  slow  in  being  lost  unless  selection 
is  at  work.*  Thus  chicks  swim,  though  not  one  in  a  thousand 
of  their  ancestors  has  done  so  for  thousands  of  years. 

It  is  remarkable  that  certain  evidence  from  human  psychol- 
ogy has  failed  to  receive  attention  in  all  these  long  debates. 
Human  life  offers  a  favored  case  for  transmission  of  an  acquired 
trait  where  transmission  has  clearly  failed.  The  congenitally 
blind  from  eye  defects  do  not  have  visual  images  of  the  sun, 
stars  or  any  other  of  the  permanent  objects  of  the  natural  world, 
yet  their  ancestors  for  at  least  hundreds  of  generations,  save  in 
the  cases  of  those  lacking  in  visual  images,  had  such  images 
again  and  again.  If  the  hourly  experiences  of  hundreds  of 
ancestral  generations  do  not  become  a  part  of  inborn  equip- 
ment, we  could  hardly  expect  anything  to  do  so. 

The  burden  of  evidence  is  thus  against  the  transmission  of 
acquired  mental  traits. f     The  strengthening  of  a  connection 

*If  acquisitions  became  inherited  of  course  unused  habits  would  tend 
to  disappear,  would,  we  might  say,  be  disinherited. 

tThe  reasons  for  denying  the  power  of  a  change  in  the  body  of  a 
parent  due  to  training  so  to  influence  the  germ  cells  that  the  bodies 
developing  therefrom  will  possess  the  change  apart  from  training,  are 
especially  strong  in  the  case  of  specific  intellectual  and  moral  tendencies. 
Yet  two  of  the  leaders  in  modern  psychology,  Wundt  and  Stanley  Hall, 
assume  that  the  acquired  behavior  of  one  generation  does  tend  to  become 
the  original  behavior  of  the  generations  to  come.  The  former  says,  for 
example:  "We  have  supposed  that  father  can  transmit  to  son  the 
physiological  dispositions  that  he  has  acquired  by  practice  during  his  own 
life,  and  that  in  the  course  of  generations,  these  inherited  dispositions 
are  strengthened  and  definitized  by  summation"  ['92,  Eng.  transl.  of  '94, 


THE  SOURCE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  235 

between  a  situation  and  a  response  by  an  individual  seems 
unlikely  to  modify  his  germs  so  as  to  reproduce,  in  the  children 
developing  therefrom,  a  stronger  bond  between  that  situation 
and  that  response  than  they  would  otherwise  have  possessed. 
Similarly  for  the  transmission  of  an  abolition  or  weakening  of 
a  connection.  Adequate  experiments  may  conceivably  reverse 
some  of  the  conclusions  based  on  existing  evidence,  but  for  the 
present  we  must  deny  the  mental  acquisitions  of  one  generation 
any  considerable  share  in  the  original  natures  of  the  next. 
Original  nature  springs  from  original  nature.  Its  improve- 
ment depends  on  the  elimination  of  the  worse,  not  on  their 
reformation.  It  depends  on  nothing  else,  unless  there  be  an 
inherent  tendency  in  human  germs  to  vary  in  a  definite  direc- 
tion, and  that  a  good  one.  We  educate  the  original  nature  of 
the  race  only  by  fostering  its  good  elements  and  encouraging 
their  fertility,  and  by  debarring  the  worse  elements  from  repro- 
duction or  by  eliminating  them  outright. 

THE  SELECTION  OF  'CHANCE'  VARIATIONS  IN  THE  GERM  PLASM 

The  important  questions  concerning  the  origin  of  any 
instinct  or  capacity  are,  as  was  noted :  first,  'What  fact  in  the 
germs  produces  it?'  and  second,  'What  fact  in  nature  produced 
this  fact  in  the  germ?'  The  doctrine  that  instincts  and  capa- 
cities spring,  not  from  parental  learning,  but  from  chance 
germinal  variations,  has  the  merit  of  calling  attention  to  the 
first  question,  but  does  not  answer  it.     The  second  question  it 

p.  408],  and  "The  assumption  of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  dispositions 
or  tendencies  is  inevitable.  [Ibid.,  p.  405.]  The  latter  docs  not  attempt 
to  explain,  or  even  notice,  the  difficulties,  but  takes  it  for  granted  that 
"simian  life  seems  to  have  almost  created  the  human  hand"  ('04,  vol.  i. 
p.  issj  and  that  "we  inherit  the  stored  results  of"  the  experience  of  the 
animals  in  our  ancestral  line.  ('04,  vol.  2,  p.  64I  His  real  interest  is 
in  being  able  to  assume  that  the  original  nature  of  man  summarizes  and 
is  due  to  all  the  life  of  his  ancestors,  not  in  ho-.v  it  is  due  to  that  life. 
Neither  Wundt  or  Hall  gives  any  theory  of  how,  or  any  evidence  that,  the 
learning  of  the  past  so  changes  the  germs  as  to  become  the  unlearned 
tendency  of  the  present. 


236  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

merely  restates  after  asserting  that  the  answer  proposed  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  hereditary  transmission  of  learning-  is  false. 

It  also,  perhaps,  unfairly  emphasizes  the  difficulty  of  ascer- 
taining what  the  subtle  forces  are  that  do  produce  the  varia- 
tions in  the  germ  which  in  time  account  for  the  appearance,  in 
the  individual,  of  unlearned  tendencies  in  thought,  feeling  and 
action. 

These  are  as  yet  hidden  in  the  chemistry  of  protoplasm ;  but 
they  are  no  more  'random'  or  'accidental'  in  the  strict  sense 
than  are  the  forces  whereby  hydrogen  and  oxygen  form  water 
or  the  earth  pursues  its  yearly  course  around  the  sun.  Nor  do 
believers  in  the  origin  of  instincts  by  the  selection  of  accidental 
variations  really  think  that  they  are. 

The  words  'accidental'  and  'chance'  indeed,  in  recent  selec- 
tionist writings,  mean  little  more  than  that  the  germinal  varia- 
tions producing  trait  A  as  an  unlearned  tendency  of  the  off- 
spring are  not  due  in  any  special  way  to  the  parental  acquisi- 
tion of  trait  A  as  a  result  of  experience.  The  germinal  varia- 
tions are,  the  selectionist  would  readily  admit,  caused  by  the 
environment,  including  the  behavior  of  the  adult  body  in  whose 
germ  plasm  the  variations  are  found,  and  caused  in  ways  that, 
if  we  knew  them,  would  be  as  regular  and  understandable  as 
any  natural  causes. 

The  word  'accidental'  has,  however,  emphasized  the  mystery 
of  causation  unduly.  We  did  not  say  that  the  origin  of 
the  solar  system,  or  of  indigo,  or  of  the  contour  of  the  Alps, 
was  due  to  the  selection  of  accidental  variations.  Had  men 
done  so,  their  zeal  in  the  search  for  these  origins  would  prob- 
ably have  been  less. 

Moreover,  the  words  'accidental'  and  'chance'  have  left  the 
impression  that  each  original  tendency  which  we  separate  off 
m  name  or  otherwise  isolate,  originated  by  itself — that  we  have 
thousands  of  independent  and  enormously  unlikely  variations 
to  be  originated — ^that  amongst  dogs  that  did  not  'point'  at  all 
one  happened  to  be  born  that  did ;  that,  amongst  birds  that  laid 
their  eggs  and  departed,  one  happened  to  be  born  with  the 


THE  SOURCE  OF  ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  237 

extraordinary  idiosyncrasy  of  keeping  them  warm  till  they 
hatched;  that  amongst  birds  that  paid  no  attention  to  their 
mother  when  they  were  babies  and  no  attention  to  their  children 
when  they  were  mothers,  there  happened  to  be  born  a  bird  with 
the  one  complex  peculiarity  out  of  millions  of  possible  ones  of 
letting  its  mother  feed  it  and  of  feeding  its  own  babies.  The 
task  of  'chance'  was  thus  staggering  to  the  imagination.  One 
had  to  remain  stupefied  by  the  vague  hopes  of  the  'millions  of 
years  of  geologic  time'  and  the  'billions  of  experiments  which 
nature  makes  every  year,'  and  the  'enormously  greater  varia- 
bility of  germs  when  the  world  was  young.' 

If  one  tried  honestly  to  figure  the  probability  that  the  atoms 
in  a  fertilized  ovum  would  be  thrown  into  such  a  condition  as 
to  produce  such  a  new  variation  as  incubation  out  of  nothing, 
he  felt  like  demanding  millions  of  millions  of  years  and  bil- 
lions of  billions  of  experiments !  IVe  need  not  try.  Original 
tendencies  to  behavior  are  not  produced,  each  independently 
out  of  a  mere  seething  of  atoms.  Each  is,  as  a  rule,  fathered 
by  some  other  instinct  from  which  it  comes  as  an  easily  con- 
ceivable 'chance.'  The  first  variations  in  the  animal  kingdom 
give  the  basis  for  the  next ;  old  variations,  by  combining  in  new 
ways  and  new  proportions  or  by  minor  alterations  in  intensity 
alone,  account  for  many  new  ones. 

Just  as  the  four-chambered  heart  of  mammals  came  as  a 
chance,  not  from  chaos,  but  from  a  three-chambered  heart,  so 
the  original  fears,  loves  and  fighting-tactics  of  man  lead  back 
to  aversions,  attractions  and  warfare  existing  long  before  man. 
Behavior,  as  well  as  gross  bodily  structure,  has  its  genealogical 
tree — its  natural  history.  The  origin  of  variations  is  directed 
in  both  cases  by  the  variations  that  have  already  occurred. 
The  task  of  the  environment  in  producing,  in  the  germ  cells  of 
multicellular  animals,  changes  such  as  have  produced  all  the 
changes  in  original  tendencies  to  behavior  from,  say.  the  flat- 
worms  to  man,  is  still  great  enough — but  it  is  a  million-fold 
less  than  it  seems  to  one  who  thinks  of  each  instinct  of  each 
species  as  a  thing  by  itself.     The  worst  difficulty  of  the  origin 


238  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

of  instincts  by  the  direct  action  of  the  environment  upon  the 
germs  was  an  imaginary  difficulty. 

THE  CONTINUITY  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES 

To  ilkistrate  the  continuity  of  instincts  and  their  origin  by 
combinations  of  previous  tendencies  or  by  modifications  thereof 
in  a  single  particular,  I  quote  the  admirable  account  of  incuba- 
tion given  by  the  late  Professor  C.  O.  Whitman. 

I.  Meaning  to  be  Sought  in  Phyletic  Roots. — It  seems 
quite  natural  to  think  of  incubation  merely  as  a  means  of  pro- 
viding the  heat  needed  for  the  development  of  the  egg,  and  to 
assume  that  the  need  was  felt  before  the  means  was  found  to 
meet  it.  Birds  and  eggs  are  thus  presupposed,  and  as  the 
birds  could  not  have  foreseen  the  need,  they  could  not  have  hit 
upon  the  means  except  by  accident.  Then,  what  an  infinite 
amount  of  chancing  must  have  followed  before  the  first  "cud- 
dling" became  a  habit,  and  the  habit  a  perfect  instinct!  We 
are  driven  to  such  preposterous  extremities  as  the  result  of  tak- 
ing a  purely  casual  feature  to  start  with.  Incubation  supplies 
the  needed  heat,  but  that  is  an  incidental  utility  that  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  nature  and  origin  of  the  instinct.  It  enables  us 
to  see  how  natural  selection  has  added  some  minor  adjustments, 
but  explains  nothing  more.  For  the  real  meaning  of  the  in- 
stinct we  must  look  to  its  phyletic  roots. 

If  we  go  back  to  animals  standing  near  the  remote  ancestors 
of  birds,  to  the  amphibia  and  fishes,  we  find  the  same  instinct 
stripped  of  its  later  disguises.  Here  one  or  both  parents  simply 
remain  over  or  near  the  eggs  and  keep  a  watchful  guard  against 
enemies.  Sometimes  the  movements  of  the  parent  serve  to 
keep  the  eggs  supplied  with  fresh  water,  but  aeration  is  not  the 
purpose  for  which  the  instinct  exists. 

2.  Means  Rest  and  Incidental  Protection  to  Offspring. — 
The  instinct  is  a  part  of  the  reproductive  cycle  of  activities,  and 
always  holds  the  same  relation  in  all  forms  that  exhibit  it, 
whether  high  or  low.  It  follows  the  production  of  eggs,  or 
young,  and  means  primarily,  as  I  believe,  rest  with  incidental 
protection  to  offspring.  That  meaning  is  always  manifest,  no 
less  in  worms,  molluscs,  Crustacea,  spiders  and  insects,  than  in 
fishes,  amphibia,  reptiTes  and  birds.     The  instinct  makes  no 


THE   SOURCE    OF    ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  239 

distinction  between  eggs  and  young,  and  that  is  true  all  along 
the  line  up  to  birds  which  extend  the  same  blind  instinct  to  one 
as  to  the  other. 

3.  Essential  Elements  of  the  Instinct. — Every  essential 
element  in  the  instinct  of  incubation  was  present  long  before 
the  birds  and  eggs  arrived.  These  elements  are:  (i)  the  dis- 
position to  remain  with  or  over  the  eggs;  (2)  the  disposition 
to  resist  and  drive  away  enemies;  and  (3)  periodicity.  The 
birds  brought  all  these  elements  along  in  their  congenital  equip- 
ment, and  added  a  few  minor  adaptations,  such  as  cutting  the 
period  of  incubation  to  the  need  of  normal  development,  and 
thus  avoiding  indefinite  waste  of  time  in  case  of  sterile  or 
abortive  eggs. 

(i)  Disposition  to  Remain  over  the  Eggs. — The  disposi- 
tion to  remain  over  the  eggs  is  certainly  very  old,  and  is  prob- 
ably bound  up  with  the  physiological  necessity  for  rest  after  a 
series  of  activities  tending  to  exhaust  the  whole  system.  If 
this  suggestion  seems  far-fetched,  when  thinking  of  birds,  it 
will  seem  less  so  as  we  go  back  to  simpler  conditions,  as  we 
find  them  among  some  of  the  lower  invertebrate  forms,  which 
are  relatively  very  inactive  and  predisposed  to  remain  quiet 
until  impelled  by  hunger  to  move.  Here  we  find  animals  re- 
maining over  their  eggs,  and  thus  shielding  them  from  harm, 
from  sheer  inability  or  indisposition  to  move.  That  is  the  case 
with  certain  molluscs  (Crepidula),  the  habits  and  development 
of  which  have  been  recently  studied  by  Professor  Conklin. 
Here  full  protection  to  offspring  is  afforded  without  any  exer- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  parent,  in  a  strictly  passive  way  that 
excludes  even  any  instinctive  care.  In  Clcpsine  there  is  a  man- 
ifest unwillingness  to  leave  the  eggs,  showing  that  the  disposi- 
tion to  remain  over  them  is  instinctive.  If  we  start  with  forms 
of  similar  sedentary  mode  of  life,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  remaining 
over  the  eggs  would  be  the  most  likely  thing  to  happen,  even 
if  no  instinctive  regard  for  them  existed.  The  protection 
afforded  would,  however,  be  quite  sufficient  to  insure  the 
development  of  the  instinct,  natural  selection  favoring  those 
individuals  which  kept  their  position  unchanged  long  enough 
for  the  eggs  to  hatch."    ['99,  pp.  2)22  ff.] 

The  proper  continuation  of  this  topic  would  be  a  series  of 
genealogies  or  evolutions  of  other  different  features  of  man's 
origfinal  nature.     But  the  natural  hi.story  of  the  development 


240  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

of  any  one  of  these,  from  its  condition  in  the  early  generalized 
primate  whence  man  sprang  to  its  condition  in  man  today,  is 
as  yet  unknown. 

Marshall  gives  (in  his  Instinct  and  Reason  ['98],  especially 
in  chapters  IV  to  VIII)  an  acute  and  interesting  speculative 
general  genealogy  of  instincts,  showing  how,  in  his  opinion, 
the  instincts  concerned  in  the  life  of  the  individual  grew  into 
more  complete  forms  as  organisms  consisting  of  larger  and 
more  variegated  aggregates  of  cells  developed,  how  the  instincts 
of  the  life  of  sex  and  the  family  could  grow  from  these  by 
variation,  complication  and  addition,  how  the  instincts  con- 
cerned in  the  life  of  larger  social  groups  should  come  later,  and 
how  a  final  instinct  to  regulate  and  harmonize  all  these  ap- 
peared in  the  shape  of  man's  tendency  to  be  religious.  Many 
other  writers  have,  in  the  case  of  one  or  other  feature  of 
human  nature,  suggested  possible  origins,  but  these  too,  though 
often  interesting,  are  speculative.  Indeed,  we  do  not  know 
ivhat  was  the  physical  form  of  the  early  primate  whence  man 
sprang,  much  less  what  were  his  original  tendencies  to 
thought,  feeling  and  conduct,  and  least  of  all  how  these  grew 
into  the  human  activities  of  our  list. 

To  recognize  the  fact  of  our  ignorance  is  itself  instructive. 
So  I  illustrate  it  in  the  case  of  the  question  of  how  far  man's 
original  nature  has  advanced  intellectually  and  morally  in  the 
course  of  the  last  ten  thousand  generations. 

THE  EXTENT  OF  SELECTION  FOR  INTELLECTUAL  AND 
MORAL  SUPERIORITY 

The  reader  who  has  absorbed  without  criticism,  as  truisms 
of  evolution,  a  multitude  of  doctrines  to  the  eflfect  that  from 
/  primitive  man  a  quarter  or  half  million  years  ago  to  man  today 
i  there  has  been  a  wonderful  increase  in  the  intellectual  capacities 
I  and  moral  instincts,  will  be  shocked  to  hear  that  it  is  well  within 
ithe  bounds  of  belief  that  man's  original  nature  is  little  or  no 
'(better  adapted  to  the  conquest  of  nature  or  to  peace  and  good 


THE  SOURCE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  24I 

will  amongst  men  now  than  then.  That  it  is  within  the  bounds 
of  belief  is  proved  by  the  simple  fact  that  competent  thinkers 
believe  it.  In  the  most  recent  and  most  searching  survey  of 
racial  progress,  Boas  expresses  gravest  doubt  concerning  the 
supposed  gains  in  original  intellect  and  morality  of  modern 
over  primitive  man.     He  says  in  summary  : 

"Before  we  entered  into  the  comparison  of  the  mental  life 
of  primitive  man  and  of  civilized  man,  we  had  to  clear  away 
a  number  of  misconceptions  caused  by  the  current  descriptions 
of  the  life  of  primitive  man.  We  saw  that  the  oft-repeated 
claim  that  he  has  no  power  to  inhibit  impulses,  no  power  of 
attention,  no  originality  of  thought,  no  power  of  reasoning, 
could  not  be  maintained;  and  that  all  these  faculties  are  com- 
mon to  primitive  man  and  to  civilized  man.  .  .  .  This  led  us 
to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  question  whether  the  hereditary 
mental  faculty  was  improved  by  civilization,  an  opinion  that 
did  not  seem  plausible  to  us."     ['ii,  p.  247.] 

It  is  a  question  of  the  origin  of  inheritable  variations  and 
of  their  selection.  What  inheritable  variations  toward  greater 
intellectual  capacities,  readier  kindliness,  and  the  like  there 
have  been  since  paleolithic  man,  no  one  knows.  Nor  do  we 
know  so  much  as  we  are  tempted  to  think  we  do  about  the 
selection  that  has  taken  place  amongst  the  varieties  of  human 
nature  then  existing  or  since  evolved.  It  is  easy  to  build  up 
plausible  hypotheses  about  who  have  been  killed  off  but  almost 
as  easy  to  undermine  them. 

As  a  sample  of  such  hypotheses  we  may  examine  the  fol- 
lowing from  Sutherland,  who  is  one  of  the  most  candid  and 
definite  and  concrete  of  the  moralists  who  see  a  cause  of  man's 
present  decency,  and  a  promise  of  general  justice  and  affection 
for  the  future,  in  the  improvement  of  man's  original  nature  by 
the  elimination  of  the  cruel,  stupid  and  perverse  individuals  of 
the  species. 

"It  may  seem  fantastic  to  assert  that  within  historic  times 
actual  physiological  differences  of  nerve  structure  can  have  l)een 
developed  in  the  race.     Yet  it  is  a  sober  fact,  though  demon- 
strable as  yet  by  only  indirect  proofs.     For  we  have  seen  that 
16 


242  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

the  man  who  is  a  good  father,  a  good  husband  and  a  good 
citizen  is  the  ancestor  of  many  progeny,  while  the  Napoleonic 
type  of  abundant  brains  but  deficient  sympathies,  even  though 
it  makes  a  brilliant  career,  perishes  in  a  century  or  less  from 
off  the  face  of  the  earth.  Let  us  form  some  idea  of  the  rate 
at  which  this  process  may  go  forward.  Each  person  now  liv- 
ing had  two  parents,  four  grandparents,  eight  great-grand- 
parents, and  so  on;  thus  ten  generations  back  his  ancestors 
formed  a  living  regiment  of  1024  persons.  If  there  has  been 
any  intermarrying  of  relatives  in  the  interval  the  number,  of 
course,  must  be  reduced.  Make  a  small  allowance,  and  assume 
that  on  an  average  each  Englishman  of  the  present  day  had 
1000  ancestors  of  the  tenth  degree  all  living  in  the  time  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  Or  rather  let  us  assume  that  there  were 
then  born  500  boys  and  500  girls  who  might  have  been  the 
ancestors  of  the  now  living  individual,  but  that  a  portion  of 
these  were  weeded  out;  some  of  them  dying  through  want  of 
sufficient  parental  care;  others  as  they  grew  up  dying  through 
their  own  failure  of  sympathetic  quality.  One  might  have 
turned  out  a  murderer  and  been  hanged,  another  a  robber  and 
been  shipped  to  the  plantations.  One  might  have  been  killed 
by  his  own  youthful  immoralities,  another  refused  a  wife 
because  of  his  disorderly  life.  In  short,  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  out  of  1000  possible  ancestors,  fifty  would,  on  an 
average,  be  eliminated  through  the  failure  of  parental,  conjugal 
or  social  qualities.  Indeed,  in  Elizabeth's  time,  out  of  every 
1000  persons  born  five  were  actually  hanged,  as  a  matter  of 
recorded  statistics.  But  brawls,  venereal  diseases,  and  so  forth 
were  far  more  potent  cleansers  of  society.  Those  thus  elim- 
inated would  be  replaced  by  men  and  women  of  better  stock, 
and  so  we  may  feel  sure  that  at  each  generation  a  steady  5  per 
cent,  of  the  poorer  type  was  withdrawn,  leaving  room  for  the 
expansion  of  those  richer  in  sympathetic  qualities.  But  the 
power  of  such  a  steady  withdrawal,  acting  in  cumulative 
fashion,  is  enormous  when  spread  over  a  sufficient  time;  even 
300  years  are  quite  enough  to  produce  visible  effects;  indeed,  if 
we  had  a  means  of  sifting  the  people  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time 
into  two  equal  sets,  those  who  could  pass  in  those  days  for 
fairly  good  men  and  women,  and  those  who  were  more  or  less 
distinctly  below  the  average  of  moral  conduct,  it  would  be 
found  that  practically  none  of  the  inferior  blood  flows  in  the 


THE  SOURCE   OF   ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  243 

veins  of  the  present  generation;  we  being  bred  almost  wholly 
from  the  better  stock. 

All  this  implies  that  nerve  organisms  of  finer  susceptibilities 
survive,  and  it  follows,  therefore,  that  we  are  of  distinctly  dif- 
ferent nerve  reactions  from  those  ancestors  of  ours  who,  1500 
years  ago,  regarded  the  Leges  Barbarorum  as  suitable  codes  of 
justice.  And  the  change  becomes  very  rapid  in  such  a  land  as 
the  England  of  the  last  three  centuries,  with  its  internal  develop- 
ment so  little  troubled  by  war,  and  its  external  conflicts  serving 
only  as  a  vent  for  restless  spirits  away  from  home.  Within 
the  community  the  preservative  value  of  courage  and  strength 
has  been  declining  while  that  of  intelligence  and  sympathy  has 
been  ever  on  the  increase.  In  no  other  way  can  we  account 
for  that  enormous  acceleration  in  the  growth  of  sympathy 
during  these  later  times,  so  abundantly  shown  in  the  chapters 
which  have,  or  were  to  have,  preceded."     ['98,  vol.  2,  p.  5  f.] 

The  difficulty  with  such  arguments  is,  of  course,  the  abun- 
dance of  apparently  contrary  cases.  Were  the  brutal  husbands 
hanged,  or  did  they  drive  their  long-suffering  wives  to  early 
graves?  Were  the  cut-throats  and  brawlers  or  the  reformers 
and  idealists  debarred,  by  death,  disgrace  or  imprisonment,  from 
having  offspring?  Many  patient  researches  must  be  made  be- 
fore anybody  can  be  sure  of  the  relation  of  selection  for  sur- 
vival and  reproduction  to  any  of  the  important  original 
tendencies  in  man,  for  even  ten  generations  back.  W^hat  it  has 
been  on  the  whole  during  the  ten  thousand  or  more  generations 
of  men  since  man  worked  flints,  we  may  never  know.  Even  if 
man's  original  nature  had  steadily  deteriorated,  the  gains  from 
training — from  the  circumstances  in  which,  and  the  tools  with 
which,  man  lives  and  works — would  probably  have  always 
masked  the  fact  to  ordinary  observation.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  human  advance  is  due  to  changed 
conditions  rather  than  changed  natures.     Perhaps  it  all  is. 

Such  are  the  perplexities  of  one  who  tries  to  account  for 
man's  present  status  in  sympathy,  curiosity,  abstract  reasoning 
and  the  like.  A  generation  ago,  men  of  science  began  to  sus- 
pect that  each  generation's  habits  did  not  directly  transfer 
themselves  into  an  instinctive  fund.    A  decade  ago,  they  began 


244  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

to  supplement  the  vague  general  fact  of  germinal  variation  and 
selection  through  survival,  by  experimental  studies  of  the  actual 
units  of  variation,  the  mechanism  of  inheritance  and  the  nature 
and  extent  of  selection  by  survival.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that,  a, 
decade  hence,  some  psychologist  will  have  shown  by  such 
scientific  genealogies  as  the  biologists  are  now  developing,  w.hat 
sorts  of  inheritable  mental  variations  are  being  originated  and 
what  varieties  of  mankind  have  been,  and  are  being,  selected 
for  survival  and  the  production  of  offspring.  The  source  of 
man's  original  nature  in  the  future  should  be,  within  the  limita- 
tions set  by  ultimate  biological  laws,  in  the  power  of  man  him- 
self. In  proportion  as  he  realizes  that  no  question  is  more 
important  for  him  than  the  question  of  who  is  being  born,  he 
can  learn  to  give  the  original  nature  of  future  men  a  higher, 
purer  source  than  the  muddy  stream  of  the  past. 


chapter  xvi 

The  Order  and  Dates  of  Appearance  and 
Disappearance  of  Original  Tendencies 

Different  original  tendencies  appear  at  different  dates  after 
the  fertilization  of  the  ovum — ^the  beginning  of  a  new  individ- 
ual life.  Some  are  delayed  only  until  birth;  some,  till  long 
after  birth.  The  order  of  appearance  and  the  length  of  the 
intervals  from  the  start  of  life  to  the  appearance  of  each  tend- 
ency are  not  random.  Typical  conditions  exist  for  man  as  a 
species,  with,  of  course,  very  wide  variations.  For  this  typical 
order  and  these  typical  intervals  there  must  be  a  reason. 

Original  tendencies  also  may  persist  for  different  lengths 
of  time  after  their  first  appearance.  The  influence  of  the 
discomfort  produced  by  them  is  often  the  only  explanation 
needed  for  this  transitoriness  and  its  degree.  But  in  some 
cases  the  original  tendency  seems  to  be  inherently  transitory, 
to  disappear  from  the  organism's  repertory  even  though  its 
exercise  produces  no  discomfort  to  the  individual.  For  these 
wanings  and  their  dates  also  there  must  be  a  reason. 

Two  theories  have  been  suggested  to  account  for  the  order 
and  the  dates  of  appearance  and  disappearance  of  original 
tendencies.  The  first  is  the  Recapitulation  Theory.  The 
second  is  the  Utility  Theory. 

the  recapitulation  theory 

The  Recapitulation  Theory  in  its  clearest  form  is  that  the 
order  of  appearance  of  original  tendencies  in  the  individual 
is  more  or  less  exactly  that  in  which  they  have  appeared  in 
the  race — that  is,  in  the  entire  ancestry  of  the  individual, — and 
that  the  intervals  from  the  fertilization  of  the  ovum  to  the 

245 


246  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

dates  of  appearance  of  the  individual's  original  tendencies 
bear  more  or  less  exactly  the  same  proportions  one  to  another 
that  the  intervals  from  the  beginning  of  life  in  the  animal 
kingdom  to  the  dates  of  appearance  of  the  same  tendencies 
in  the  race  bear  one  to  another.  The  order  and  dates  of  dis- 
appearance in  the  individual  parallel  in  a  similar  manner  the 
corresponding  facts  in  man's  ancestry.  The  reason  assigned 
for  this  parallelism  between  an  individual  and  his  entire  ances- 
try in  the  order  and  dates  of  appearance  and  disappearance 
of  original  tendencies  by  the  recapitulation  theory  is  the  sup- 
posed bionomic  law.  This  is  a  law  of  the  germ's  development 
whereby  any  change  made  in  it  is  made  with  an  additional 
mechanism  that  sets  the  date  of  the  change's  effect  on  the  indi- 
vidual developing  from  that  germ  later  than  the  dates  of  the 
effects  of  changes  made  hitherto  in  the  germ.  Suppose,  for 
example,  that  for  a  thousand  centuries  from  the  origin  of  life, 
man's  ancestors  floated  aimlessly,  then  for  a  thousand  swam 
by  cilia,  then  for  a  thousand  wriggled  like  snakes,  then  for  a 
thousand  walked  on  four  feet,  then  for  a  thousand  both  walked, 
climbed  and  swung  as  do  the  monkeys.  Let  us  suppose  fur- 
ther that  each  new  tendency  was  accompanied  by  the  loss  of 
the  old  one.  Then,  by  this  extreme  form  of  the  recapitulation 
theory,  the  human  individual  should,  beginning  at  the  start 
of  his  individual  life,  possess  these  tendencies  in  that  same 
order,  retain  each  for  an  equal  time,  and  lose  them  one  after 
another  (except  of  course  the  last,  whose  loss  would  depend 
upon  whether  the  individual's  ancestry  had  lost  it). 

A  more  general  illustration  in  graphic  form  will  help  to 
fix  this  extreme  form  of  the  Recapitulation  Theory  in  memory. 
Suppose  tendencies  A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  to  have  appeared  in  man's 
ancestry  at  the  times  shown  by  the  upper  ends  of  the  lines  at 
the  left  hand  of  Fig.  22  and  to  have  been  lost  at  the  times 
shown  by  the  lower  ends  of  these  lines.  Then  tendencies  A, 
B,  C,  D,  etc.,  will  appear  in  man's  life  and,  apart  from  outside 
influence,  will  disappear  therefrom,  as  shown  by  the  lines  at 
the  right  of  Fig.  22. 


ORDER   AND  DATES 


247 


TIME  UNE  FOR 

TMERACt 
YEARS 


30oaooo 


6000000 


9.000.000 


\ZO00.QQD 


isooaooo 


I8O0Q0OO 


2Ij0OO4)OO 


24000.000 


Z7i)00.000- 


31.000.000  • 


TIME  LINE  F0» 

THE  INDIYIOUAL 

YEARS 

At 


BIRTH 

2 

4 

6 

6 
•I  10 
'  12 
.  14 
-  16 

•  18 
•20 

•  22 
24 


Fig.    32. 


This  clear  extreme  form  of  the  recapitulation  theory  is 
probably  held  by  no  student  of  human  nature;  for,  obviously, 
the  time  during  which  the  early  ancestral  tendencies  are  pos- 
sessed by  the  individual  is,  if  not  zero,  at  least  a  far  smaller 
fraction  of  the  time  during  which  the  late  ancestral  tendencies 
are  possessed  by  him  than  is  the  case  with  the  times  in  the 
case  of  the  race.  So  the  parallelism  of  individual  and  race 
is  universally  amended  by  supposing  the  early  racial  tendencies 


248 


THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 


to  be  in  the  individual  abbreviated  in  some  rough  proportion 
to  their  earliness. 

Instead  of  Fig.  22,  then,  we  would  have  something  Hke 
Fig.  23,  wherein  A's  stay  in  the  individual  is  one-tenth  as  long 
a  fraction  of  the  period  from  conception  to  the  adult  condition, 
as  A's  stay  in  the  individual  is  of  the  period  from  the  protozoa 
to  modern  man;  B's  stay  is  two-tenths;  C's  is  four-tenths 
and  D's  is  seven-tenths. 

To  make  sure  that  the  reader  gets  a  just  idea  of  what  the 


TIME  UNE  FOR 
THE  RACE 

Or 


3.000.000 


e.000.000 


9.000.000 


12.000000 


I5j000X)00 


laooaooo 


21000.000 


24000000 


27.000.000 


31000.000 


TIME  UNE  FOR 
THE  INDIVIDUAL 

Al 

0 
BIRTH 

''I 

. 

2 

c 

- 

4 
6 
8 
10 

- 

12 
14 
16 
18 
20 
22 
24 

Fig.   23. 


ORDER  AND  DATES  249 

recapitulation-theory  means  to  its  adherents  and  of  how  they 
use  it  in  explaining  human  nature,  I  quote  at  some  length 
from  their  most  instructive  statements  about  it.  The  following 
are  samples  of  the  more  general  statements: 

**The  course  of  mental  development  is  exactly  determined 
through  the  relation  of  ontogenesis  (individual  development) 
to  phylogenesis  (the  development  of  the  race).  The  develop- 
ment of  the  higher  (purposive  and  rational)  activities  is  regu- 
lated in  every  respect  in  accord  with  the  previously  developed 
instincts,  and  is  primarily  conditioned  by  them.  No  influence 
that  works  in  opposition  to  this  development  and  to  the  law 
of  inheritance  of  racial  traits  in  order  can  ever  reach  a  suitable 
adaptation,  but  only  disturbs  the  natural  course  of  development, 
and  creates  abnormal  misdirected  endeavor."  [Schneider,  '82, 
p.  489] 

"The  individual,  from  conception  to  senescence,  follows 
the  order  of  development  of  the  race."  [Burk,  F.  L.,  '98, 
p.  36]     ^ 

"As  in  the  physical  world,  so  in  the  psychical  there  is  a 
natural  order  of  growth.  Since  it  is  the  order  of  nature  that 
the  new  organism  should  pass  through  certain  developmental 
stages,  it  behooves  us  to  study  nature's  plan  and  seek  rather 
to  aid  than  to  thwart  it.  For  nature  must  be  right;  there  is 
no  higher  criterion.  There  is,  therefore,  no  study  of  more 
vital  importance  to  the  educationist  than  this  of  the  natural 
development  of  organisms.  The  parallelism  of  phylogeny  and 
ontogeny  enforces  the  argument  in  favor  of  natural  develop- 
ment and  the  doctrine  of  katharsis  or  vaccination  as  applied 
to  the  moral  growth  of  the  child.  It  furnishes  a  double  sup- 
port to  the  view  that  education  should  be  a  process  of  orderly 
and  gradual  unfolding,  without  precocity  and  without  inter- 
ference, from  lower  to  ever  higher  stages;  that  forcing  is  un- 
natural and  that  the  mental  pabulum  should  be  suited  to  the 
stage  of  development  reached.  So  long  as  we  keep  the  end  in 
view  and  do  not  cause  the  child  to  linger  in  any  of  the  stages, 
we  need  not  fear  the  discipline  that  each  stage  is  calculated  to 
give  as  a  preparation  for  the  next.  For  what  Von  Baer  long 
ago  said  of  animals  is  true  also  of  the  child :  'The  tyi>e  of 
each  animal  appears  to  fix  itself  at  the  very  beginning  in  the 
embryo  and  to  dominate  the  whole  development.' 

"The  period  of  animal   recapitulation  is  short.     In  this 


250  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

work  the  attempt  has  not  been  made  to  deal  with  the  recapitu- 
lation of  human  stages  of  development,  but  reasoning  from  the 
fact  that  the  length  of  time  taken  to  recapitulate  a  period  does 
not  depend  upon  the  duration  of  that  period  phylogenetically, 
but  upon  its  recency,  we  may  conclude  that  the  recapitulation 
of  human  stages  of  development  is  much  longer  than  that  of 
the  longest  animal  stage,  viz.,  the  ape  stage."  [Guillet,  '00, 
pp.  427-428] 

"Holding  that  the  child  and  the  race  are  each  keys  to  the 
other,  I  have  constantly  suggested  phyletic  explanations  .  .  " 
[Hall,  G.  S.,  '04,  vol.  I,  p.  viii] 

.  .  .  "the  child  ontogenetically  recapitulating  the  phylo- 
genetic  development  of  the  race,  craves  instinctively  for  com- 
munion with  nature."     [Bolton,  F.  E.,  '99,  p.  227] 

.  .  .  "ontogenetic  development  is  recapitulatory.  Each  in- 
dividual passes  through  the  stages  through  which  its  phylum 
Jias  passed."    [Dawson,  G.  E.,  '00,  p.  189] 

.  .  .  "the  child's  development  is  only  a  condensed  index 
of  what  took  place  on  the  larger  plane  of  race  history." 
[Slaughter,  J.  W.,  '02,  p.  294] 

The  following,  all  from  Stanley  Hall,  are  samples  of  the 
theory  as  it  works  in  use : 

"Our  animal  ancestors  were  not  birds,  and  we  cannot 
inherit  sensations  of  flying;  but  they  floated  and  swam  far 
longer  than  they  have  had  legs,  had  a  radically  different  mode 
of  breathing,  and  why  may  there  not  be  vestigial  traces  of 
this  in  the  soul,  as  there  are  gill-slits  under  the  skin  of  our 
necks;  and  why  may  not  the  former  come  to  as  great  prom- 
inence in  exceptional  stages  and  persons  as  the  latter  do  in 
some  monstrous  births?  To  deny  it  is  to  make  the  soul  more 
limited  in  its  backward  range  than  is  the  body.  For  one,  I 
am  too  realistic  and  cannot  think  so  meanly  of  the  soul  as  to 
do  this.  Although  it  cannot  be  demonstrated  like  rudimen- 
tary organs,  I  feel  strongly  that  we  have  before  us  here  some 
of  the  oldest  elements  of  psychic  life,  some  faint  reminiscent 
atavistic  echo  from  the  primeval  sea."    ['97,  p.  158] 

"These  non-volitional  movements  of  earliest  infancy  and 
of  later  childhood  (such  as  'licking  things,  clicking  with  the 
tongue,  grinding  the  teeth,  biting  the  nails,  shrugging  cor- 
rugations, pulling  buttons  or  twisting  garments,  strings,  etc., 


ORDER   AND  DATES  2$ I 

twirling  pencils/  etc.  etc.)  .  .  .  are  relics  of  past  forms  of 
utilities  now  essentially  obsolete.  Ancient  modes  of  loco- 
motion, prehension,  balancing,  defense,  attack,  sensuality,  etc., 
are  all  rehearsed,  some  quite  fully  and  some  only  by  the  faintest 
mimetic  suggestion,  flitting  spasmodic  tensions,  gestures,  or 
facial  expressions."     ['04,  Vol.  i,  p.  160] 

"The  best  index  and  guide  to  the  stated  activities  of  adults 
in  past  ages  is  found  in  the  instinctive,  untaught,  and  non- 
imitative  plays  of  children.  ...  In  play  every  mood  and 
movement  is  instinct  with  heredity.  Thus  we  rehearse  the 
activities  of  our  ancestors,  back  we  know  not  how  far,  and 
repeat  their  life  work  in  summative  and  adumbrated  ways.  It 
is  reminiscent,  albeit  unconsciously,  of  our  line  of  descent,  and 
each  is  the  key  to  the  other.  .  .  .  Thus  stage  by  stage  we 
enact  their  (our  ancestors')  lives.  Once  in  the  phylon  many 
of  these  activities  were  elaborated  in  the  life  and  death  strug- 
gle for  existence.  Now  the  elements  and  combinations  oldest 
in  the  muscle  history  of  the  race  are  re-presented  earliest 
in  the  individual,  and  those  later  follow  in  order."  ['04,  Vol. 
I,  pp.  202-203] 

"Very  interesting  scientifically  and  suggestive  practically 
is  another  correspondence  .  .  .  between  the  mode  of  spon- 
taneous activity  in  youth  and  that  of  labor  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  race  ,  .  .  during  this  early  time  great  exertion, 
sometimes  to  the  point  of  utter  exhaustion  and  collapse,  alter- 
nated with  seasons  of  almost  vegetative  existence.  We  see 
abundant  traces  of  this  psychosis  in  the  muscle-habits  of  adoles- 
cents."    ['04,  Vol.   I,  p.  215  f.] 

"Normal  adolescent  boys  especially  wish  to  explore  night 
out-of-doors,  to  rove  about  perhaps  with  adventurous  or  roman- 
tic thoughts,  and  on  moonlight  nights  particularly  there  is  a 
pathos  about  the  necessity  of  rest.  A  part  of  this  suggests 
an  atavistic  recrudescence  of  what  may  have  been  in  primitive 
man  the  need  of  watchfulness,  the  custom  of  predatory  adven- 
tures by  night,  still  reverberating  in  the  attenuated  form  of 
periods  of  nocturnal  restlessness."     ['04,  Vol.  i,  p.  264] 

"As  in  the  pre-natal  and  infant  stage  man  hears  from  his 
remoter  forebears  back  perhaps  to  primitive  organisms,  now 
(at  adolescence)  the  later  and  higher  ancestry  takes  up  the 
burden  of  the  song  of  life,  and  the  voices  of  our  extinct  and 
perhaps  forgotten,  and  our  later  and  more  human  ancestry, 
are  heard  in  the  soul."     ['04,  Vol.  2.  p.  70  f.] 


252  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

.  .  .  "the  interesting  phenomenon  of  'candle-light  fever/ 
Children  wake  up  as  to  a  new  morn  in  petto,  are  wild,  noisy, 
frolicsome,  and  abandoned.  This,  I  suggest,  may  be  the  rever- 
beration in  modern  souls  of  the  joy  that  in  some  prehistoric 
times  hailed  the  Prometheus  art  of  controlling  fire  and  defy- 
ing night."     ['04,  Vol.  2,  p.   173] 

"The  years  from  about  eight  to  twelve  constitute  an  unique 
period  of  human  life.  The  acute  stage  of  teething  is  passing, 
the  brain  has  acquired  nearly  its  adult  size  and  weight,  health 
is  almost  at  its  best,  activity  is  greater  and  more  varied 
than  ever  before  or  than  it  ever  will  be  again,  and  there  is 
peculiar  endurance,  vitality,  and  resistance  to  fatigue.  The 
child  develops  a  life  of  its  own  outside  the  home  circle,  and 
its  natural  interests  are  never  so  independent  of  adult  influence. 
Perception  is  very  acute,  and  there  is  great  immunity  to  ex- 
posure, danger,  accident,  as  well  as  to  temptation.  Reason, 
true  morality,  religion,  sympathy,  love,  and  esthetic  enjoy- 
ment are  but  very  slightly  developed.  Everything,  in  short, 
suggests  the  culmination  of  one  stage  of  life  as  if  it  thus  repre- 
sented what  was  once  and  for  a  very  protracted  and  relatively 
stationary  period,  the  age  of  maturity  in  some  remote,  per- 
haps pigmoid  stage  of  human  evolution,  when  in  a  warm  cli- 
mate the  young  of  our  species  once  shifted  for  themselves  inde- 
pendently of  further  parental  aid."     ['04,  Vol.  i,  pp,  ix  and  x] 

"Adolescence  is  a  new  birth,  for  the  higher  and  more  com- 
pletely human  traits  are  now  born.  .  .  .  The  child  comes 
from  and  harks  back  to  a  remote  past.     ['04,  Vol.  i,  p.  xiii]* 

THE  UTILITY  THEORY 

The  Utility  Theory  explains  the  dates  of  original  tend- 
encies by  the  same  causes  as  account  for  their  existence — 
variation  and  selection.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  date 
at  which  a  tendency  appears  is  that  one  of  the  many  varying 
dates  at  which  it  has  appeared  in  our  ancestry  which  has  been 
most  serviceable  in  keeping  the  stock  alive.     Thus  suckling, 

♦Abundant  further  illustrations  may  be  found  in  Stanley  Hall's 
Adolescence — e.g.,  in  vol.  i,  on  pages  i6o,  206,  216,  223,  264,  353,  356,  358, 
361,  366;  and,  in  vol.  2,  on  pages  181  f.,  192,  194  f.,  212  f.,  215,  216,  217, 
219,  365. 


ORDER   AND  DATES  253 

though  late  in  the  race,  is  early  in  the  individual.  The  sex 
instincts,  though  early  in  the  race,  are  very  late  in  the  individ- 
ual. Walking  on  all  fours,  though  the  possession  of  the  race 
for  perhaps  millions  of  years,  is  evanescent  or  non-existent  as 
a  human  instinct;  creeping,  though  not  a  duplicate  of  any  im- 
portant form  of  locomotion  possessed  and  then  lost  in  our 
ancestral  line,  is  one  of  the  most  emphatic  transitory  tenden- 
cies of  infancy. 

An  advocate  of  the  Utility  Theory  should  not  assert  that 
the  actual  order  is  in  every  particular  useful  (that  is,  more 
useful  that  a  chance  order)  ;  much  less  that  it  is  the  most  use- 
ful order  for  survival  that  there  could  be.  An  order  of  original 
tendencies  has  to  be  very  injurious  if  the  individual  possessing 
it  is  to  be  very  frequently  eliminated.  For  a  better  order 
than  whatever  order  exists  to  be  selected  for  survival,  it  must 
first  appear  as  a  variation.  That  is,  the  theory  that  the  order 
and  dates  of  appearance  and  disappearance  of  original  tend- 
encies are  due  to  natural  selection  is  subject  to  the  same  inter- 
pretation as  the  theory  of  natural  selection  elsewhere. 

I  have  not  found  instructive  quotations  representing  the 
utility  theory.  It  has  been,  perhaps,  assumed  by  opponents 
of  the  recapitulation  theory,  but  they  have  generally  been  sat- 
isfied to  point  out  the  latter's  impossibilities,  without  advanc- 
ing a  constructive  doctrine.  As  held  by  the  writer,  the  utility 
theory  of  the  order  of  appearance  and  dates  of  the  original 
tendencies  in  human  intellect  and  character  is  that  tlie  same 
causes  which  account  for  tlie  origin  and  perpetuation  of  a 
tendency  account  for  its  time  relations  to  other  tendencies. 
Whatever  makes  tlie  tendency  happen  at  all  makes  it  happen  at 
some  date  and  place  in  the  total  order  of  the  animal's  develop- 
ment. Wluitrjer  makes  it  vary  at  all  makes  it  vary  in  its  date. 
Other  things  being  equal,  the  date  which  will  be  perpetuated 
will  be  that  one  of  the  many  varying  dates  at  which  it  appears, 
which  proves  most  serviceable  in  keeping  the  species  alive. 
Similarly  for  its  date  of  disappearance.  What  the  time  rela- 
tions of  human  original  tendencies  are,  like  what  the  tenden- 


254  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

cies  themselves  are,  is  thus  the  result  of  variation  by  whatever 
influences  the  germplasm  and  selection  by  utility. 

THE    EVIDENCE 

Advocates  of  the  recapitulation  theory  rely  upon  the  anal- 
ogy between  the  development  of  the  mind  and  that  of  the 
body,  and  the  assumption  that  in  the  latter  the  order  of  change 
from  the  fertilized  ovum  to  the  adult  structure  is  the  order  of 
change  in  the  race  from  the  protozoa  to  homo  sapiens.  'Since 
ontogeny  repeats  phylogeny  in  the  growth  of  the  body,  it 
probably  does  in  the  growth  of  behavior/  is  the  one  repeated 
argument. 

The  facts  are,  however,  that  the  only  valid  analogy  would 
be  between  the  development  of  the  mind  and  that  of  the  central 
nervous  system,  that  the  latter  does  not  develop  in  man  in  any- 
thing at  all  closely  like  the  way  in  which  it  has  developed  in 
the  total  ancestry  of  man,  and  that  in  the  body  as  a  whole 
the  duplication  of  phylogeny  by  ontogeny  is  by  no  means  a 
general  law  of  growth.  These  three  points  will  best  be  dis- 
cussed in  the  reverse  order. 

The  recapitulatory,  or  bio-genetic,  or  bionomic,  law  that 
'ontogeny  repeats  phylogeny'  is  true  in  only  a  very  vague  and 
partial  way.  Only  in  rough  outlines  and  in  the  case  of  a  frac- 
tion of  bodily  organs  does  nature  make  an  individual  from  the 
fertilized  ovum  by  the  same  series  of  changes  by  which  it 
made  his  species  from  the  primitive  protozoa.  No  competent 
biologist  would,  for  instance,  dare  to  infer,  from  the  series  of 
stages  through  which  the  lungs,  arms  and  legs,  and  cerebral 
hemispheres  pass  in  individual  development,  what  the  exact 
origins  of  lungs,  arms  and  fore-brain  were  in  the  race.  The 
likenesses  of  a  man  at  successive  periods  to  the  adult  forms 
of  a  fish,  reptile  and  early  mammal  are  faint  and  questionable. 
No  one  would  mistake  the  human  embryo  at  any  stage  for 
any  adult  fish  or  reptile  or  mammal.  No  one  can  tell  from 
ontogeny  what  the  phylogeny  of  man  has  been  in  the  great 


ORDER   AND   DATES  255 

changes  from  invertebrate  to  vertebrate,  from  early  generalized 
mammal  to  primate,  from  early  primate  to  man.  The  clearest 
cases  of  recapitulation  are  those  where  the  way  taken  to  pro- 
duce the  structure  is  a  likely  way  apart  from  any  tendency 
to  recapitulate  for  recapitulation's  sake.  Thus,  for  a  four- 
chambered  heart  to  be  made  by  making  one  chamber,  dividing 
it,  and  then  dividing  each  of  the  halves ;  for  a  backbone  to  be 
deposited  in  a  mould  of  cartilage ;  for  a  multicellular  animal  to 
grow  by  cell  division,  or  for  the  total  structure  of  an  animal  to 
be  first  laid  down  in  a  series  of  segments,  might  be  efficient 
ways  irrespective  of  ancestry.  We  must  not  forget  that  the 
animal  has  to  grow  somehow. 

The  facts  of  ontogeny  and  of  phylogeny  in  the  case  of  the 
central  nervous  system  are  notably  discouraging  to  the  expec- 
tation that  the  dates  of  original  tendencies  in  intellect  and 
character  from  birth  to  manhood  can  be  prophesied  from  the 
history  of  the  race.  Man's  brain  in  general  follows  in  its 
growth  a  course  enormously  unlike  that  by  which  it  developed 
in  the  race.  His  backbone  and  heart  may  at  one  stage  be 
much  like  that  of  a  reptile,  but  his  brain  is  not.  His  head  may 
show  traces  of  gill  slits,  but  his  brain  never  develops  the 
lateral-line  system  of  the  fishes.  The  fusion  of  tail  vertebrae 
may  be  followed  in  his  coccyx,  but  the  fusion  of  segments  in 
the  brain  is  almost  or  quite  untraceable.  Moreover,  by  the 
time  a  baby  is  born,  his  brain  has  long,  long  outgrown  any 
forms  comparable  to  those  of  fish,  amphibion,  reptile  or  early 
mammal.  So  also  in  the  number  of  its  neurones.  The 
growth  of  the  neurones'  connections  has  not  been  traced,  but 
this  seems  least  of  all  likely  to  repeat  racial  history.  Oddly 
enough  the  chief  variation  of  the  brain's  growth  from  that  of 
the  body  as  a  whole  is  a  most  unlikely  variation  to  come  on 
the  recapitulatory  hypothesis :  his  brain  is  si)ecially  big  for  his 
body,  the  new-born  being  in  this  respect  the  super-man! 

Now  for  any  valid  expectation  that  a  child  should  have 
at  a  certain  age  original  tendencies  to  thought  or  action 
such  as  are  characteristic  of  a  fish  or  monkey  or  primitive 


256  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

man,  one  should  have  reason  to  expect  the  parts  of  his  brain  con- 
cerned to  be  at  that  age  Hke  the  corresponding  parts  of  the 
brain  of  the  primitive  man  or  the  monkey  or  the  fish.  Such 
reasons  are  lacking. 

The  argument  from  analogy  with  bodily  development  thus 
fails  to  justify  the  hypothesis  that  the  order  and  dates  of 
human  original  tendencies  will  correspond  with  their  order  of 
acquisition  and  length  of  maintenance  in  man's  total  ancestry. 
The  question  should  be  settled,  not  by  overstraining  an  anal- 
ogy, but  by  actually  comparing  the  individual  and  the  racial 
course  of  development. 

Neither  series  is  well  enough  known  to  allow  more  than 
occasional  and  inadequate  comparisons;  but  what  little  is 
known  is  rather  decidedly  against  any  close  parallelism  of 
the  two.  For  example,  reaching  for  objects,  holding  them, 
putting  them  in  the  mouth,  sitting  up,  standing  erect,  walking, 
climbing,  hunting,  migration,  fighting  and  the  sex  instincts, 
whose  dates  of  appearance  in  individual  development  are 
fairly  well  known,  come  in  nothing  like  the  order  and  at 
nothing  like  the  dates  of  racial  development. 

Even  the  cases  suggested  as  examples  of  the  parallelism 
by  advocates  of  the  theory  often  are  strong  evidence  against 
it.  For  example,  Stanley  Hall  states  as  possible  parallels, 
in  the  individual,  of  the  fish  stage  in  the  race,  the  following: 

"A  babe  a  few  days  old  .  .  .  made  peculiar  paddling  or 
swimming  movements." 

"In  children  and  adults  ...  we  find  swaying  from  side 
to  side  or  forward  or  backward,  not  infrequent.  This  sug- 
gests the  slow  oscillatory  movements  used  by  fish." 

"Children  .  .  .  after  the  first  shock  and  fright  take  the 
greatest  delight  in  water." 

"Others  older  or  less  active  can  sit  by  the  hour  seeing  and 
hearing  the  movement  of  water  in  sea  or  stream."  ['04,  vol. 
2,  pp.  192-195,  passim] 

The  fish  stage  is  thus  paralleled  all  the  way  from  four  days 
to  forty  years,  even  if  we  doubt  the  existence  in  fishes  of  any- 


ORDER    AND   DATES  257 

thing  like  the  elderly  contemplation  of  water  by  one  sitting  on 
the  bank. 

The  life  of  the  early  primates  according  to  Hall  ['04,  vol. 
2,  p.  214  ff.]  is  recapitulated  by  the  prehensile  power  of  the 
new-born,  the  fear  of  thunder  and  lightning,  the  fear  of  ser- 
pents, the  fear  of  high  winds,  the  somnolence  of  infants  when 
rocked,  the  fear  of  open  places,  the  "untaught  horror  of  water" 
and  the  fact  that  man  does  not  instinctively  swim,  the  fear 
of  falling,  the  clinging  of  infants  to  the  parent,  the  love  of 
climbing  in  boys,  and  the  fact  that  'man  has  an  instinctive 
pleasure  to  get  up  high  and  look  down  and  afar,  "imitative- 
ness,  the  facts  that  children  instinctively  and  without  teaching 
ascribe  "emotion,  sense,  intelligence,  morality,  to  trees"  and 
that  "dense  forests  soothe,  hush,  and  awe  the  soul  and  feci 
like  church.'  " 

Roughly  the  individual  would  seem  to  pass  through  the 
primate  stage  somewhat  earlier  than  the  fish  stage,  especially 
since  we  can  confidently  acquit  our  monkey  ancestors  of  any 
tendency  to  ascribe  "intelligence  and  morality  to  trees"  or  to 
feel  "like  church."  But  within  a  single  page  Hall  has  the 
childish  interest  in  trees  recapitulating,  not  the  life  of  the 
primates,  but  that  of  the  primitive  man!  The  same  author 
makes  the  early  teens  recapitulate  "the  darkest  of  all  ages 
during  which  brute  became  man,"  the  times  of  astrology  and 
ancient  myths  of  stars,  and  the  times  of  "pastoral  and  agri- 
cultural life"  as  well  as  the  times  of  the  fishes  and  apes.  The 
new-born  baby  not  only  "makes  paddling  and  swimming  move- 
ments" qua  fish,  but  also  has  a  "horror  of  water"  qua  monkey. 
Such  defenses  of  the  recapitulation  theory  are  obviously  more 
dangerous  to  it  that  the  most  violent  attacks. 

Certain  obvious  exceptions — such  as  the  very  late  appear- 
ance in  the  individual  of  the  instincts  of  sex  which  arose  very 
early  in  the  race,  or  the  very  early  appearance  in  the  individual 
of  babbling,  laughing,  weeping,  grasping  and  putting  in  the 
mouth — have  forced  the  adherents  of  the  recapitulation  theory 
to  admit  that,  in  the  individual,  the  racial  order  is  much  dis- 
17 


258  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

torted,  and  that  some  of  its  elements  are  omitted  altogether, 
or  passed  through  so  rapidly  as  to  be  hardly  discernible. 
When  it  is  admitted  that  such  distortions  and  omissions 
are  very  frequent,  little  more  is  left  of  the  theory  than 
a  useless  general  scheme  for  explaining  facts  whose  existence 
has  to  be  proved  by  direct  observation  entirely  apart  from  the 
theory,  or  a  body  of  dubious  suggestions  for  investigation. 
A  rule  for  the  exceptions  becomes  more  instructive  than  the 
rule  itself. 

On  the  whole,  the  recapitulation  theory  in  the  case  of 
mental  traits  seems  to  be  an  attractive  speculation  with  no 
more  truth  behind  it  than  the  fact  that  when  a  repetition  of 
phylogeny,  abbreviated  and  modified,  is  a  useful  way  of  pro- 
ducing an  individual,  he  may  be  produced  in  that  way.  In 
intellectual  capacities  the  child  of  two  years  has  passed  all  the 
stages  previous  to  man.  It  is  difficult  to  find  even  one  instinct 
in  ten  that  occupies  in  his  ontogeny  the  same  relative  position 
in  time  that  it  occupied  in  his  phylogeny.  No  fact  of  value 
about  either  the  ontogeny  or  phylogeny  of  behavior  has,  to 
my  knowledge,  been  discovered  as  a  result  of  this  theory. 
Consequently  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  influence  which 
it  has  exerted  upon  students  of  human  nature  is  due,  not  to 
rational  claims,  but  to  its  rhetorical  attractiveness.  The  gen- 
eral idea  was  entertained  before  the  days  of  Von  Baer  and 
Darwin,  and  its  educational  parallel,  the  culture-epoch  theory, 
has,  despite  absence  of  rational  grounds,  been  exceedingly 
popular. 

The  evidence  for  and  against  the  utility  theory  may  be 
summarized  more  briefly.  If  the  clearest  cases  of  delayed 
tendencies  are  examined,  their  dates  of  appearance  do  seem, 
within  such  limitations  as  hold  of  all  functions,  to  be  more 
useful  to  the  species  than  much  earlier  dates  would  be.  Thus, 
supposing  in  each  case  that  the  rest  of  man's  organization 
remained  as  it  is,  a  tendency  to  try  to  walk  at  six  months, 
or  to  climb  trees  at  two  years,  or  to  sex-indulgence  at  eight, 


ORDER   AND  DATES  259 

and  the  like,  would  probably  be  injurious.  If  clear  cases  of 
transitoriness  are  examined,  their  dates  of  disappearance  seem 
also  roughly  more  economical  than  much  earlier  or  later  dates 
would  be.  Thus,  apart  from  civilization's  aids,  the  species 
would  probably  suffer  if,  while  the  rest  of  man's  organization 
remained  as  it  was,  children  lost  the  tendency  to  suckle  at  the 
age  of  six  months  or  retained  the  tendency  to  cling  to  a 
familiar  human  animal  till  the  age  of  sixty  years. 

Divergences  from  the  racial  order  and  dates  are  very 
often  in  the  direction  of  a  more  useful  order.  So  sitting  up 
baby-wise  with  legs  outstretched  in  front  comes  in  the  early 
months  of  man's  life  (though  very  late,  or  not  at  all,  in  the 
race),  preceding  the  full  development  of  reaching,  grasping 
and  putting  in  the  mouth.  So  walking  erect  precedes  climb- 
ing trees.  So  there  is  a  mutual  adaptation  of  the  dates  of  the 
baby's  behavior  and  the  mother's  and  father's  at  the  age  of 
zero  for  the  former,  and  at  fourteen  or  later  in  the  latter,  though 
presumably  in  the  race  these  correlatives  developed  at  the 
same  time. 

On  the  whole,  although  too  little  is  as  yet  known  of  the 
dates  of  appearance  and  disappearance  of  human  original  ten- 
dencies to  verify  any  theory,  natural  selection  of  a  certain 
date  for  a  tendency  seems  to  have  the  same  claim  that  natural 
selection  of  the  tendency  itself  has. 

THE  DATES  OF  APPEARANCE  OF  PARTICULAR  TENDENCIES 

Since  an  original  tendency  may  appear  only  after  a  certain 
stage  of  growth  is  reached,  may  increase  in  strength  or  vary 
in  nature  as  growth  progresses  and  may,  apart  from  all  effects 
of  experience,  wane  and  disappear,  such  a  tendency  is  ade- 
quately described  only  by  describing  its  status  at  every  stage 
of  growth.  The  inventory  of  our  earlier  chapters,  to  be 
complete,  would  have  to  include  the  changes  in  each  original 
tendency  in  relation  to  the  animal's  growth  or  total  life- 
history.     In  a  later  volume  I  hope  to  remedy  this  incomplete- 


260  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

ness,  but  for  the  present,  the  assignment  of  each  detailed 
tendency  to  a  period  in  the  individual's  life  and  the  estimate 
of  its  rate  of  rise  (and  of  its  fall,  if  it  is  transitory)  will 
be  left  to  the  reader's  own  judgment  or  further  studies. 

No  very  sharp  details  should  be  expected  from  such  studies. 
The  complex  interaction  of  growth  from  within  and  training 
from  without  is  so  baffling  that  the  studies  that  have  been 
made  of  the  time-relations  of  instincts  are  inconclusive  even 
when  the  methods  of  getting  and  treating  the  facts  have  been 
sound.  When,  as  has  often  been  the  case,  the  collection  of 
data  has  been  misguided  and  their  treatment  uncritical,  the 
results  are  likely  to  be  less  accurate  than  a  sagacious  man's 
guess.  Consequently,  the  literature  in  this  field,  though  in 
many  cases  interesting  as  a  concrete  presentation  of  child 
life,  does  not  enable  one  to  separate  the  unlearned  from  the 
learned  year  by  year. 

Two  general  questions  concerning  the  time-relations  of 
original  tendencies  may  be  discussed  here  because  of  their 
intrinsic  importance  and  their  service  in  predisposing  the  stu- 
dent to  a  critical  attitude  in  connection  with  the  general 
literature  of  mental  development  in  childhood.  These  questions 
concern  the  suddenness  of  the  waxing  of  delayed  tendencies 
and  the  frequency  of  transitory  tendencies. 

THE  GRADUAL  WAXING  OF  DELAYED  INSTINCTS  AND  CAPACITIES 

It  is  a  favorite  dictum  of  superficial  psychology  and  peda- 
gogy that  instincts  lie  entirely  dormant  and  then  spring  into 
full  strength  within  a  few  weeks.  At  a  certain  stage,  we 
are  told,  such  and  such  a  tendency  has  its  'nascent  period'  or 
ripening  time.  Three  is  the  age  for  fear,  six  is  the  age  for 
climbing,  fifteen  is  the  age  for  cooperativeness,  and  the  like. 
The  same  doctrine  is  applied  to  the  supposed  'faculties'  or  very 
general  capacities  of  the  mind.  Within  a  year  or  two  around 
eight  the  child  is  said  to  change  from  a  mere  bundle  of  sensory 
capacities,  to  a  child  possessed  of  imagination;  somewhere 


ORDER   AND  DATES  26 1 

around  thirteen  another  brief  score  of  months  brings  his  rea- 
soning up  from  near  zero  to  nearly  full  energy;  a  year  or 
two  somewhere  in  the  'teens  creates  altruism ! 

These  statements  are  almost  certainly  misleading.  The 
one  instinct  whose  appearance  seems  most  like  a  dramatic 
rushing  upon  life's  stage — the  sex  instinct — is  found  upon 
careful  study  to  be  gradually  maturing  for  years.  The  capa- 
city for  reasoning  shows  no  signs  by  any  tests  as  yet  given 


«  7  8  8  LO         11         fS        18         14         16         10 

Fjc.  24-  The  average  rate  of  tappine  for  boys  of  each  age  from  6  to  16.  The 
continuous  line  represents  Gilberts  estimate;  the  dash  line  represents  Bryan's 
estimate    (for    the    left-wrist-movcment). 

of  developing  twice  as  much  in  any  one  year  from  five  to 
twenty-five  as  in  any  other.  In  the  cases  where  the  differences 
between  children  of  different  ages  may  l)e  taken  roughly  to 
measure  the  rate  of  inner  growth  of  capacities,  what  data  we 
have  show  nothing  to  justify  the  doctrine  of  sudden  ripening 
in  a  serial  order.  Thus  the  results  in  the  case  of  the  rate 
of  tapping  (as  on  a  telegraph  key)  for  boys  are  shown  in 
Figure  24.  The  dash  line  represents  the  average  ability  year 
by  year  from  six  to  sixteen  as  determined  t)y  Bryan   ['9.3]  ' 

*  For  one  of  eight  movemcnt>  i;      I  by  him,  the  'Left  Wrist.' 


262 


THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE  OF   MAN 


and  the  continuous  line  that  determined  by  Gilbert  ['94]. 
Figure  25  shows  the  average  of  the  two  curves.  These 
curves  suggest  fluctuations,  notably  a  failure  of  the  thirteen- 
year-olds  to  surpass  the  twelve-year-olds,  a  notable  superiority 
of  the  sixteen-year-olds  over  the  fifteen-year-olds,  and  a  g-reater 
gain  from  six  to  eleven  than  thereafter,  but  the  development 


30— 


25— 


20- 


a  15  — 


£ 


»0- 

\ 

5  — 


_J 
16 


10 


II 


12 


13 


14 


6  7  8  9 

AGE  IN  YEARS 

Fig.    25.     The    average    of    the    two    curves    shown    in    Fio.    24. 


15 


of  the  capacity  is,  as  a  whole,  gradual.  At  least,  that  word 
would  seem  to  most  observers  to  fit  the  progress  measured 
by  Figures  24  and  25. 

The  few  interests  whose  strength,  period  by  period,  have 
been  more  or  less  well  measured,  give  no  evidence  of  any 
sudden  accession  to  power.     Thus  collecting  *  seems  to  increase 

*  According  to  C.  F.  Burk  [*oo]  twelve  hundred  boys  and  girls  reported 
to  their  teachers  the  names  of  the  objects  which  they  were  at  the  time 


ORDER    AND   DATES  263 

in  vigor  gradually  from  before  six  to  ten.  The  capacities 
of  sensory  discrimination,  memory,  observation  and  the  like 
which  have  been  measured  in  children  at  different  ages,  are 
of  course  in  the  conditions  that  they  are  at  any  age  because  of 
training  as  well  as  inner  growth,  and  the  facts  concerning 
their  rates  of  gain  cannot  be  used  at  their  face  value  in  our 
argument.  But  so  far  as  they  do  go,  they  give  no  support 
to  the  theory  of  the  sudden  rise  of  inner  tendencies.  Indeed 
every  tendency  that  has  been  subjected  to  anything  like  rigid 
scrutiny  seems  to  fit  the  word  gradual  rather  than  the  word 
sudden  in  the  rate  of  its  maturing. 

In  the  case  of  the  lower  animals,  where  control  of  training 
and  accurate  measurement  of  the  animal's  performance  is 
feasible,  gradualness  of  development  is  found  the  rule  for 
delayed  instincts.  Thus  the  author  ['99]  found  that  a  dozen 
days  or  so  were  required  from  the  first  beginnings  to  the  full 
development  of  fear  of  large  moving  objects  in  chicks,  that 
the  fighting  of  roosters  shows  its  first  feeble  beginnings  as 
early  as  the  sixth  day  of  the  chick's  life,  that  the  balancing 
reaction  (on  a  swinging  perch)  develops  gradually  from  the 
sixth  day  on. 

collecting.  The  average  number  of  collections  reported  by  those  of  each 
age  from  six  to  seventeen  is  given  as  follows : 

Average  Number  of  Active  Collections  for  Different  Ages 
Age  Av.  per  Boy      Av.  per  Girl  Av.  per  Child 

6  years 1.2  1.9  14  collections 

7  "  2.1  2.6  2.3 

8  "  3-5  45  4 

9  "  3-9  4-1  4  '^ 

10      "  4  4  44  4-4 

11"  3-4  ii  -3-3 

12  "  3  3  3 

13  "  3  5  3-4  3-4  '^ 

14  "  3  3  3 

15  "  2.7  3-2  3 

16  "  2.1  3  3  2.8 

17  "  2  3  2.5 

Such  errors  as  children  would  make  in  their  reports  probably  would 
act  to  make  the  rise  from  six  to  ten  seem  more  sudden  than  it  really  was. 
Even  as  reported,  the  rise  is  very  gradual. 


264  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

THE  PROBABLE   FREQUENCY  OF  TRANSITORINESS   IN    ORIGINAL 

TENDENCIES 

James'  description  of  the  fact  of  transitoriness  and  of  its 
extent  in  man  is  the  best  introduction  to  the  second  of  our 
questions.     He  says: — 

"Leaving  lower  animals  aside,  and  turning  to  human  in- 
stincts, we  see  the  law  of  transiency  corroborated  on  the  widest 
scale  by  the  alternation  of  different  interests  and  passions  as 
human  life  goes  on.  With  the  child,  life  is  all  play  and  fairy- 
tales and  learning  the  external  properties  of  'things ;'  with  the 
youth  it  is  bodily  exercises  of  a  more  systematic  sort,  novels  of 
the  real  world,  boon- fellowship  and  song,  friendship  and  love, 
nature,  travel  and  adventure,  science  and  philosophy ;  with  the 
man,  ambition  and  policy,  acquisitiveness,  responsibility  to 
others,  and  the  selfish  zest  of  the  battle  of  life.  If  a  boy 
grows  up  alone  at  the  age  of  games  and  sports,  and  learns 
neither  to  play  ball,  nor  row,  nor  sail,  nor  ride,  nor  skate,  nor 
fish,  nor  shoot,  probably  he  will  be  sedentary  to  the  end  of  his 
days ;  and,  though  the  best  of  opportunities  be  afforded  him  for 
learning  these  things  later,  it  is  a  hundred  to  one  but  he  will 
pass  them  by  and  shrink  back  from  the  effort  of  taking  those 
necessary  first  steps  the  prospect  of  which,  at  an  earlier  age, 
would  have  filled  him  with  eager  delight.  The  sexual  passion 
expires  after  a  protracted  reign;  but  it  is  well  known  that  its 
peculiar  manifestations  in  a  given  individual  depend  almost 
entirely  on  the  habits  he  may  form  during  the  early  period  of 
its  activity.  Exposure  to  bad  company  then  makes  him  a  loose 
liver  all  his  days;  chastity  kept  at  first  makes  the  same  easier 
later  on.  In  all  pedagogy  the  great  thing  is  to  strike  the  iron 
while  hot,  and  to  seize  the  wave  of  the  pupil's  interest  in  each 
successive  subject  before  its  ebb  has  come,  so  that  knowledge 
may  be  got  and  a  habit  of  skill  acquired — a.  headway  of  interest, 
in  short,  secured,  on  which  afterward  the  individual  may  float. 
There  is  a  happy  moment  for  fixing  skill  in  drawing,  for  mak- 
ing boys  collectors  in  natural  history,  and  presently  dissectors 
and  botanists;  then  for  initiating  them  into  the  harmonies  of 
mechanics  and  the  wonders  of  physical  and  chemical  law. 
Later,  introspective  psychology  and  the  metaphysical  and  re- 
ligious mysteries  take  their  turn ;  and  last  of  all,  the  drama  of 


ORDER   AND   DATES  265 

human  affairs  and  worldly  wisdom  in  the  widest  sense  of  the 
term."     ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  400  f.] 

The  particular  statements  of  this  characteristic  passag"e  form 
a  sagacious  commentary  on  the  loss  of  interests  as  a  man  grows 
up  and  becomes  engaged  in  new  pleasures  and  duties,  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  do  show  the  law  of  transiency  to  be  very 
widely  active  in  human  instincts.  Two  forces,  other  than  the 
law  of  transitoriness,  must  be  considered,  before  attributing  the 
ebbs  in  man's  activities  so  exclusively  to  it.  The  first  is  the 
force  of  new  situations — changed  circumstances  about  man — 
rather  than  a  changed  nature  in  him.  The  second  is  the  force 
of  changes  in  his  nature  due  to  special  acquisitions — learned 
habits — not  to  mere  losses  of  transitory  instincts  and  capacities. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  loss  of  zeal  for  'play  and  fairy 
tales  and  learning  the  external  properties  of  things'  by  the 
youth  and  grown  man.  Is  not  a  part  of  the  loss  due  to 
changed  circumstances?  Would  not  a  man  regain  a  portion 
of  his  zeal  for  play,  if,  say,  all  the  fellow-members  of  his  stock 
exchange  or  club  or  factory  began  by  a  miracle  to  play  ?  Is  it 
not,  in  part,  the  avoidance  of  the  disapproval  of  his  fellows 
which  makes  the  youth  or  man  cast  off  childish  things.  Given 
a  situation  such  that  play  adds  no  discomforting  moral  or  social 
results,  and  the  youth  or  man  does  seem  to  act  as  if  the  sup- 
posedly lost  zest  had  simply  been  held  down  by  lack  of  a  con- 
genial situation  such  as  it  customarily  had  in  childhood.  So 
the  student  body  of  a  college  may  all  spin  tops  or  play  marbles ; 
hard-headed  brokers  may  gambol  in  an  initiation  festivity ;  and 
joyless  politicians  may  jump  up  and  down  and  dance  in  a  ring. 
Are  not  the  pleasures  of  travel  and  the  stock  sports  of  amuse- 
ment-parks both  evidence  that  the  love  of  'learning  the  external 
properties  of  things'  persists  in  fair  measure  into  adult  years? 
New  places,  new  sights,  new  experiences  attract  grown  men 
and  women  also.  It  is  even  a  stock  item  in  everyday  humor 
that  the  boy's  craving  for  the  circus  is  his  father's  excuse. 
The  displays  of  aeroplanes  of  the  last  two  years  seem  to  be 
frequented  by  adults  because  of  the  same  interest  in  learning 


266  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

the  external  properties  of  things  which  makes  the  child  besiege 
the  engine-house. 

Of  the  difference  between  the  child  and  the  adult  in  this 
respect  which  remains  after  changed  circumstances  have  been 
allowed  for,  is  not  a  part  due  to  the  addition  of  habits  rather 
than  the  loss  of  instincts?  *To  design  a  real  engine  in  com- 
petition with  other  inventors  under  the  stimulus  of  the  world's 
needs  expressed  in  money  price  and  personal  distinction'  is  so 
much  more  satisfying  to  man's  nature — even  to  his  original 
nature — than  'playing  cars'  or  'playing  build  bridges,'  that  the 
serious  habit  eventually  makes  the  play  out  of  which  it  sprang 
an  inferior  interest.  If  a  man  gets  only  innocent  pleasure 
from  hearing  fairy  tales,  and  gets  not  only  innocent  pleasure 
but  also  comforts  for  his  family  from  writing  them,  we  must 
expect  that  the  habit  will  displace  the  less  remunerative  instinct. 
The  youth  may  be  more  interested  in  the  intern-al  properties  of 
things  revealed  by  mechanics,  electricity,  chemistry  and  biology, 
just  because  he  has  already  had,  and  used  up,  the  satisfactions 
of  knowing  external  facts  about  chairs  and  tables,  tops  and 
balls,  horses  and  dogs.  His  apparently  new  interests  may  be 
the  same  fundamental  interest  turned  to  new  objects  because 
of  a  change  produced  in  him  by  experience.  The  old  objects 
have  lost  their  appeal  because  of  the  connections  they  have 
acquired  in  the  course  of  his  training — not  because  of  an  inevit- 
able decay  of  some  original  welcoming  force. 

The  discounts  for  changes  in  the  situation  and  acquired 
changes  in  the  man,  which  I  have  suggested  as  necessary  in  the 
case  of  'play  and  fairy  tales  and  learning  the  external  proper- 
ties of  things,'  can  be  shown  to  be  appropriate  in  the  case  of 
the  other  losses  incurred  by  the  process  of  maturity  which 
James  has  chosen. 

If  this  is  the  case  with  James's  temperate  account,  what 
shall  we  say  of  those  who  describe  the  inner  growth  of  man's 
instincts  and  capacities  altogether  as  a  series  of  tendencies, 
appearing,  waiting,  lasting  a  brief  space  and  vanishing  unless 
then  and  there  fixed  as  habits — ^like  the  ripening  of  fruits  which 


ORDER   AND   DATES  -      267 

soon  decay  unless  preserved  by  the  housewifery  of  habits,  or 
like  a  procession  of  candidates  which  pass  through  an  office, 
disappearing  for  good  and  all  unless  enlisted  at  the  time  and 
drilled  by  some  recruiting  officer  of  the  mind.  Such  a  sharp 
definition  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  original  tendencies  in  a  serial 
order  of  stages  or  epochs  seems  to  me  to  be  a  gross  exaggera- 
tion, corresponding  only  here  and  there  to  the  actual  progress 
of  inner  development. 

To  refute  such  extravagant  notions  of  the  suddenness  of 
appearance  of  original  tendencies,  their  brevity  of  stay  and 
their  disappearance  without  other  cause  than  an  inherent  orig- 
inal transitoriness  of  the  neural  bonds,  it  should  suffice  to  think 
over  the  tendencies  themselves,  each  in  connection  with  the 
treatment  it  receives  at  the  hands  of  the  changes  produced  by 
circumstances  in  the  stimulating  situation  and  responding 
organism.  For  example,  the  readiness  of  the  hunting  response 
persists  even  in  spite  of  the  inadequate  stimuli  and  absence  of 
rewards  of  a  modern  village  or  town,  so  that,  if  habitual 
restraints  are  removed,  men  will  gladly  leave  their  work  to 
chase  an  escaped  cat.  They  will,  with  slight  encouragement, 
undergo  notable  privations  and  expense  to  spend  a  few  days 
in  tracking  game  and  possessing  themselves  of  animal  carcasses 
got  by  so  near  an  approach  as  is  possible  to  man's  original 
naked-handed  pursuit.  Collecting  and  hoarding  survive  the 
penalties  which  follow  childish  scavenging  and  adult  waste  of 
time.  The  drawers,  closets  and  attics  of  five  houses  out  of 
ten  bear  some  witness  to  the  tendency.  Whole  trades  maintain 
themselves  by  ministering  to  its  continued  strength.  One  of 
the  commonest  hobbies  of  the  rich  man,  though  as  a  boy  he  may 
have  been  much  below  the  average  in  zeal  for  collecting  for  a 
collection's  sake,  is  to  become  a  bibliophile,  or  connoisseur  in 
rugs,  or  collector  of  paintings.  Many  stories  could  be  told  tg 
illustrate  the  persistence  in  us  all  of  that  which  makes  the  ten- 
year-old  collect  and  hoard  stamps  or  cigar  tags.  Mr.  Keppel 
tells  in  his  Goldeti  Age  of  Engraving  of  a  London  dealer  in 
engravings  and  etchings  who,  upon  inheriting  a  small  fortune, 


268  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

that  day  locked  his  door  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  sat  like  a 
miser  amongst  the  prints  he  no  longer  had  to  sell.  A  former 
librarian  of  Harvard  College  is  reported  to  have  said  exultingly 
one  afternoon,  "Every  book  belonging  to  the  library  is  here 
except  one  and  I  am  going  to  get  that  from  Professor  Child 
now."  Many  of  my  readers  indeed  will  be  able  to  testify  to 
some  similar  irrational  potency  of  collecting  or  hoarding  in 
their  own  lives.  The  original  satisfyingness  of  having  some- 
thing behind  one's  back  and  over  one's  head  when  resting  which 
we  called  the  instinct  of  shelter  or  habitation  persists,  as  James 
himself  has  shown,  in  our  "feigning  a  shelter  within  a  shelter 
by  backing  up  beds  in  rooms  with  their  heads  against  the 
walls,  and  never  lying  in  them  the  other  way."  The  migratory 
tendency,  if  it  is  instinctive  at  all,  is  surely  potent  even  in  those 
who,  for  long  years,  could  not  indulge  it.  Witness  the  number 
of  elderly  creatures,  of  even  the  home-loving  sex,  whom  one 
finds  on  trains  and  steamboats  and  in  hotels. 

The  most  probably  instinctive  stimuli  to  fear, — ^thunder, 
reptiles,  large  suddenly  approaching  animals,  darkness  and 
strange  persons — seem  to  retain  a  fair  measure  of  their  power 
except  for  contrary  habits.  Facts  of  any  sort  about  fears  are 
dubious,  and  the  complications  due  to  training  are  troublesome 
to  allow  for,  so  that  it  is  conceivable  that  the  occasional  mani- 
festations of  the  tendency  keep  it  alive  in  spite  of  an  inherent 
transitoriness.  But  it  would  be  very  risky  to  undertake  to 
explain  even  half  of  the  persistent  fears  of  thunder,  darkness 
and  strangers  as  habits  retained  long  after  their  original 
impetus  had  waned.  And  no  one,  I  judge,  will  assert  that  the 
avoidance  of  snakes  and  fear  of  large  animals  is  an  instinct 
limited  to  childhood. 

So  I  might  continue  with  pugnacity,  motherly  behavior, 
gregariousness,  responses  to  and  responses  by  approval  and 
scorn,  mastery  and  submission,  the  sex  instincts,  rivalry,  jeal- 
ous behavior,  kindliness,  bullying,  visual  exploration,  manipula- 
tion, curiosity  and  the  other  human  original  tendencies  im- 


ORDER   AND   DATES  269 

portant  for  educational  theory  and  practice.*  Transitoriness 
is  a  fact ;  instincts  do  wax  and  wane ;  but  the  waning  is  far  less 
frequent,  far  more  gradual  and  far  later  in  its  onset,  than  the 
ordinary  descriptions  of  stages,  epochs,  fluctuations  and  the  like 
would  lead  one  to  believe.  Much  of  human  behavior  can  be 
explained  by  certain  original  tendencies  which  wane  slowly  or 
not  at  all,  except  in  so  far  as  the  consequences  of  their  mani- 
festations stamp  them  out,  or  the  law  of  disuse  slowly  weakens 
them. 

*I  may  note  that  a  beginning  was  made  with  the  hunting  instinct  at 
random,  and  that  the  evidence  against  early  and  sudden  waning  is  fully 
as  strong  in  the  case  of  the  'social'  instincts  as  in  the  case  of  hunting, 
collecting,  sheltering,  migration  and  fears. 


chapter  xvii 
The  Value  and  Use  of  Original  Tendencies 

At  the  beginning  of  this  volume  it  was  stated  that  human 
welfare  required  that  some  original  tendencies  be  cherished, 
that  some  be  redirected  or  modified,  and  that  others  be  elim- 
inated outright.  Such  is  the  ordinary  common-sense  view  ex- 
pressed, for  example,  by  Meumann  ['07,  edition  of  '11,  p.  699 
f.]  in  the  following  passage: — 

Wherever  we  compare  the  child  who  has  been  relatively 
left  to  himself  with  the  child  of  like  age  who  has  been  more 
subjected  to  training,  we  see  that  the  more  educated  child  has 
progressed  very,  very  much  farther  than  the  child  left  more  to 
himself;  and  further,  where  our  present  education  as  a  whole 
neglects  certain  functions,  these  remain  far  below  what  the 
child  might  achieve.  We  could  also  recall  such  cases  as  that 
of  Caspar  Hauser,  who  grew  up  in  a  pig-pen  and  reached  only 
the  condition  of  a  beast  for  lack  of  education,  while  he  proved 
himself  to  be  a  normally  endowed  human  being  as  soon  as  train- 
ing was  given  him.  We  do  not,  however,  need  such  excep- 
tional cases.  We  see  still  more  in  the  two  phenomena  men- 
tioned here,  that  wherever  the  development  of  the  child  is  even 
only  relatively  left  to  itself,  the  whole  mental  development  has 
from  the  start  the  character  of  lack  of  system  and  imperfection 
and  inadequacy  and  pure  chance  in  the  results  attained.  .  .  . 

From  these  facts  it  follows  that  we  cannot  leave  the  child 
to  its  natural  development ;  for  natural  development  ( i )  does 
not  attain  what  the  subject  of  education  can  achieve  by  his 
organization  and  his  capacities,  and  (2)  does  not  attain  what 
the  subject  of  education  as  a  grown-up  human  being  must 
attain.  We  could  make  this  clear  by  any  examples  at  random, 
but  let  me  refer  only  to  the  development  of  speech,  which  shows 
these  two  phenomena  with  especial  distinctness.  The  speech 
of  the  child  who  is  left  to  himself  would  neither  develop  in 
general  into  a  cultivated  speech,  nor  to  the  correct  speech  of 
his  surroundings;  and  the  child  who  is  neglected  in  linguistic 

270 


THE   USE  OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  2/1 

matters  remains  as  a  rule  quantitatively  and  qualitatively  many 
years  behind  the  child  of  good  linguistic  training.  From  this 
it  follows  that  education  cannot  leave  development  to  itself, 
wherefore  it  opposes  natural  development  with  a  certain  pres- 
sure. ...  All  procedures  of  education  must  be  oriented  from 
two  points  of  view.  They  must  be  at  the  same  time  according 
to  ideals  and  according  to  nature, — that  is,  they  must  strive  to 
realize  the  aims  of  education  in  the  best  manner,  and  they  can 
in  general  do  that  only  if  they  are  adapted  step  by  step  to  the 
laws  of  the  development  of  the  child." 

To  most  of  my  readers  it  will  seem  evident  that  original 
nature  includes  tendencies  that  are  good,  tendencies  that  can 
be  used  for  good,  and  tendencies  that  had  best  be  abolished. 
The  fact  that  maternal  affection,  curiosity  and  cruelty  are 
original  tendencies  would  seem  sufficient  proof  of  the  statement, 
but  it  has  been  denied  by  two  extreme  views,  one  that  original 
nature  is  essentially  wrong  and  untrustworthy,  the  other  that 
original  nature  is  always  right.  The  former  view,  though 
probably  as  fair  as  the  latter,  is  now  in  universal  disrepute  and 
need  not  detain  us.  The  latter,  by  being  attractive  to  senti- 
mentalists, absolutist  philosophers  and  believers  in  a  distorted 
and  fallacious  form  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  has  been  of 
great  influence  upon  educational  theories.  Since  it  is  also 
championed  to  some  extent  by  so  eminent  a  student  of  human 
nature  as  Stanley  Hall,  it  must  be  considered  seriously. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  NATURE*S  INFALLIBILITY 

By  the  'Nature  is  Right'  doctrine,  the  actual  terminus  of 
evolution  is  the  moral  end  of  human  action.  What  is  going  to 
be,  is  rigfit.  Our  duty  is  to  abstain  from  interfering  with 
nature,  supposing  such  interference  to  be  possible.  .'\  child 
should  be  trained  up  in  the  way  that  the  inner  impulse  of 
development  leads  him  to  go.  The  summum  bouum  for  the 
race  is  to  live  out  its  own  evolution  with  interest  and  freedom. 
No  stage  to  which  nature  impels,  should  by  human  artifice  be 
either  hastened  or  prolonged,  lest  the  magic  order  l)c  disturbeil. 


2,^2  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 


1, 
\ 


The  ideal  for  humanity  is  to  be  sought  in  its  natural  outcome, 
in  what  it  of  itself  tends  to  be,  irrespective  of  training.  Human 
effort  should  be  to  let  the  inner  forces  of  development  do  their 
perfect  work. 

This  doctrine  that  the  unlearned  tendencies  of  man  are 
right  is  assumed  in  a  vague  way  as  a  support  for  one  or  another 
proposal  about  educational  practice  more  often  than  it  is  stated 
straightforwardly  as  a  general  principle.  But  the  quotations 
that  follow  will  serve  as  a  composite  statement  and  illustration 
of  it  as  a  general  principle. 

"No  influence  that  works  in  opposition  to  this  development 
(that  of  original  nature)  and  to  the  law  of  the  inheritance  of 
racial  traits  in  order  can  ever  reach  a  suitable  adaptation,  but 
only  disturbs  the  natural  course  of  development,  and  creates 
abnormal,  misdirected  endeavor."     [Schneider,  '82,  p.  489] 

"Only  here  (in  the  original  tendencies  or  'natural  develop- 
ment' of  the  individual  and  of  the  race)  can  we  hope  to  find 
true  norms  against  the  tendencies  to  precocity  in  home,  school, 
church,  and  civilization  generally,  and  also  to  establish  criteria 
by  which  to  both  diagnose  and  measure  arrest  and  retardation 
in  the  individual  and  the  race."  [G.  Stanley  Hall,  '04,  Pre- 
face, p.  viii] 

"Thus  exercise  ought  to  develop  nature's  first  intention  and 
fulfill  the  law  of  nascent  periods,  or  else  not  only  no  good  but 
great  harm  may  be  done."     [Hall,  '04,  vol.  i,  p.  208] 

"These  nativistic  and  more  or  less  feral  instincts  can  and 
should  be  fed  and  formed.  .  .  .  The  teacher's  art  should  so 
vivify  all  that  the  resources  of  literature,  tradition,  history,  can 
supply  which  represents  the  crude,  rank  virtues  of  the  race's 
childhood,  that  .  .  .  the  child  can  enter  upon  his  full  heritage, 
live  out  each  stage  of  his  life  to  the  fullest,  and  realize 
in  himself  all  its  manifold  tendencies."  [Hall,  '04,  Preface,  p. 
xi] 

.  .  .  "an  evolutionist  must  hold  that  the  best  and  not  the 
worst  will  survive  and  prevail."  [Hall,  '04,  Preface,  p. 
xviii], 

Of  motor  development  Stanley  Hall  writes :  "All  parts 
should  act  in  all  possible  ways  at  first  and  untrammeled  by  the 
activity  of  all  other  parts  and  functions.  .  .  .  All  movements 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  273 

arising  from  spontaneous  activity  of  nerve  cells  or  centers  must 
be  made."     [Hall,  '04,  vol.  i,  p.  161] 

The  same  author  uses  the  alleged  fact  that  in  the  early 
'teens  muscular  strength  increases  rapidly,  while  accuracy  in 
movement  improves  only  slightly  as  a  sufficient  reason  for 
advising  "that  for  a  few  years  the  stress  should  incline  to  the 
larger  sthenic  or  coarser  strength  forms  of  development,  and 
that  precision  should  have  less  relative  emphasis."  ['04,  vol. 
I,  p.  147] 

Guillet  says :  "Since  it  is  the  order  of  nature  that  the  new 
organism  should  pass  through  certain  developmental  stages,  it 
behooves  us  to  study  nature's  plan,  and  to  seek  rather  to  aid 
than  to  thwart  it.  For  nature  must  be  right ;  there  is  no  higher 
criterion."     [Guillet,  '00,  p.  427] 

Acher  says :  "It  thus  becomes  the  imperative  duty  of  edu- 
cators to  follow  this  course  of  development  and  work  with  the 
current  of  psychic  evolution  and  not  against  it  as  is  so  often  the 
case  at  present."     [Acher,  '10,  p.  115] 

To  these  extraordinary  renunciations  of  any  hope  of  improv- 
ing upon  the  unguided  course  of  inner  growth  common  sense 
at  once  opposes  the  facts  that  lying,  stealing,  torturing,  ignor- 
ance, irrational  fears,  and  a  hundred  weaknesses  and  vices,  are 
original  in  man. 

Schneider,  Stanley  Hall,  and  others  who  have  proclaimed 
that  'Nature  is  right'  and  used  the  doctrine  as  a  pillar  of  their 
theories  of  education,  were  not  ignorant  of  these  facts.  Nor 
did  they  forget  such  facts  temporarily  in  zeal  for  their  attrac- 
tive doctrine.  They  offer,  or  could  offer,  three  explanations 
of  these  apparently  wrong  original  tendencies  in  man. 

First,  an  original  tendency  that  is  undesirable,  in  and  of 
itself,  may  be  the  prerequisite  of  some  desirable  tendency  and 
hence,  on  the  whole,  desirable. 

"Children,"  writes  Burk,  frequently  persist  in  following 
some  strange,  useless  or  even  savage  interests  quite  foreign  to 
our  civilization  .  .  .  these  strange  and  useless  experiences 
nevertheless  may  be  essential  as  a  platform  out  of  which  a 
higher  coordination,  useful  for  modern  life,  may  be  reached. 
The  intermediate  stage  or  level  may  be  useless  or  even  inimical 
18 


274  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

to  our  civilization,  but  yet  as  a  link  in  evolution,  be  none  the 
less  essential."     [Burk,  F.  L.,  '98,  p.  24] 

In  Stanley  Hall's  words,  "Many  an  impulse  seeks  expres- 
sion, which  seems  strong  for  a  time,  but  which  will  never  be 
heard  of  later.  Its  function  is  to  stimulate  the  next  higher 
power  that  can  only  thus  be  provoked  to  development,  in  order 
to  direct,  repress  or  supersede  it.  .  .  .  Nearly  every  latency 
must  be  developed,  or  else  some  higher  power,  that  later  tempers 
and  coordinates  it,  lacks  normal  stimulus  to  develop."  ['04, 
vol.  2,  pp.  90-91]  Thus  the  miscellaneous  and  apparently 
futile  finger  movements  of  babies  may  be  a  necessary  fore-run- 
ner of  reaching,  grasping,  holding,  and  the  like. 

Second,  An  original  tendency,  undesirable  in  and  of  itself, 
may  on  the  whole  be  desirable  because  it  is  the  necessary  corre- 
late or  result  of  some  desirable  tendency. 

The  tendency  to  righteous  anger  may  involve  a  tendency  to 
mere  raging.  Love  may  be  unable  to  exist  in  full  measure 
without  jealousy  of  the  irrational,  cruel  and  mean  sort.  In 
Stanley  Hall's  opinion,  "An  able-bodied  young  man,  who  can 
not  fight  physically,  can  hardly  have  a  high  and  true  sense  of 
honor,  and  is  generally  a  milk-sop,  a  lady-boy,  or  a  sneak." 
['04,  vol.  I,  p.  217] 

Third,  a  tendency  undesirable  in  and  of  itself  would,  on  the 
whole,  be  desirable,  if  by  its  presence  in  early  life,  man  is  pro- 
tected from  the  same  tendency  later. 

If  being  a  thief  at  five  and  a  bully  at  ten  kept  one  from 
being  a  thief  and  a  bully  from  twenty-five  to  seventy,  these 
original  tendencies  would  of  course  be  desirable  as  lesser  evils. 
That  original  tendencies  do  sometimes  thus  preventively  inocu- 
late and  immunize  has  been  asserted  by  Stanley  Hall  and 
many  of  his  followers. 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  275 

THE   DOCTRINE   OF   CATHARSIS 

A  few  quotations  may  serve  to  present  this  doctrine  fairly. 

"Rudimentary  organs  need  to  be  not  only  developed,  but 
often  used  in  order  to  dwindle  in  form  and  function,  and  to 
make  place  for  the  next  higher  organs  and  functions,  for  which 
they,  in  the  higher  forms  of  life,  are  mere,  although  indispen- 
sible,  succedanea.  Stimulus  and  use,  at  a  certain  stage,  seem 
to  be  necessary,  not  to  make  them  develop,  as  in  the  case  with 
most  tissues  ...  but  to  directly  cause  their  gradual  atrophy." 
[Hall  and  Allin,  '97,  p.  17] 

**Rudimentary  organs  of  the  soul  now  suppressed,  perverted, 
or  delayed,  to  crop  out  in  menacing  forms  later,  would  be 
developed  in  their  season  so  that  we  should  be  immune  to  them 
in  maturer  years."     [Hall,  '04,  Preface,  p.  x] 

.  .  .  "faculties  and  impulses,  which  are  denied  legitimate 
expression  during  their  nascent  periods,  break  out  well  on  in 
adult  life."     [Hall,  '04,  vol.  2,  p.  90] 

"It  seems  a  law  of  psychic  development,  that  more  or  less 
evil  must  be  done  to  unloose  the  higher  powers  of  constraint 
and  to  practice  them  until  they  can  keep  down  the  baser  in- 
stincts."    [Hall,  '04,  vol.  2,  p.  83] 

Burk,  who  does  not  himself  decide  that  the  doctrine  of  im- 
munization by  early  attacks  is  true,  gives  one  of  the  best  state- 
ments of  it  in  the  case  of  teasing  and  bullying.  It  is,  he  says, — 
"the  view  that  exercise  of  these  impulses  in  children's  plays  and 
games  does  not  strengthen  them,  but,  on  the  contrary,  drains 
off  the  energy  in  a  natural  and  harmless  way,  in  a  sort  of  vac- 
cination sense.  If  these  impulses  were  not  allowed  free  expres- 
sion in  natural  plays  and  forms  of  amusement,  such  as  teasing, 
then  in  their  restraint  this  energy  would  remain  as  a  poison  to 
the  whole  system  and  later  give  rise  to  criminal  outbreaks. 
This  view  regards  the  plays  of  childhood  as  the  safety  valves 
to  prevent  repression  and  internal  development  in  forms  later 
to  break  forth  in  deeds  of  criminal  passion."     ['97,  p.  370] 

"Now  what  are  the  applications  of  this  view  to  many  of 
these  strange  complexes  that  apjx^ar  in  early  childhood,  even 
to  include  such  seemingly  evil  forms  as  those  which  appear  in 
cruelty,  bullying  and  teasing?  May  it  not  be.  indeetl.  that  they 
constitute  a  level  in  the  evolutionary  hierarchy,  and  though  in 
themselves  useless,  are  nevertheless  an  essential  platform  from 


276  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

which  the  coordinations  of  a  higher  and  useful  level  are 
formed?  It  is  plausible  that  the  child  needs  to  live  to  some 
extent  the  life  of  his  ancestors  in  order  actually  to  develop  in 
his  own  nervous  system  the  kinaesthetic  sensations  which  by 
the  process  of  higher  evolution  may  serve  as  the  basis  for 
higher  forms  of  activity  in  the  highest  levels?  It  becomes 
indeed  a  question  of  extreme  nicety  to  determine  just  the  exact 
moment  when  sufficient  actual  experience  has  fully  established 
the  racial  tendency  and  the  time  for  inhibition  and  radiation 
of  the  force  into  higher  cerebral  associations  should  follow. 
Danger  of  arrest  of  development  at  the  lower  stage  is  as  im- 
portant as  that  the  fundamental  impressions  should  not  be 
made.  Such  a  view  gives  these  curious  phenomena  a  natural 
place  in  child  life,  and  emphasizes  the  probability  that  chil- 
dren's plays  and  games,  as  mild  vaccination  forms,  serve  as 
mediations  between  brutal  ancestral  tendencies  in  the  nervous 
system,  and  the  higher  levels  employed  in  altruistic  modern 
life,  between  savage  racial  action  and  civilized  ideation." 
[Burk,  '98,  p.  42] 

Stanley  Hall  uses  the  term  Catharsis  as  a  name  for  this 
doctrine  of  later  immunity  through  early  indulgences  and  also 
for  the  radically  different  doctrine  that  later  immunity  is  fav- 
ored by  early  esthetic  contemplation  of  the  vice  or  imaginative 
participation  in  it.*  The  second  use  appears  in  such  state- 
ments as : 

"I  incline  to  think  that  many  children  would  be  better  and 
not  worse  for  reading,  provided  it  can  be  done  in  tender  years, 
stories  like  those  of  Captain  Kidd,  Jack  Sheppard,  Dick  Turpin, 
and  other  gory  tales,  and  perhaps  later  tales  like  Eugene  Aram, 
the  ophidian  medicated  novel,  Elsie  Venner,  etc.,  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Aristotelian  catharsis  to  arouse  betimes  the  higher 
faculties  which  develop  later,  and  whose  function  it  is  to  deplete 
the  bad  centers  and  suppress  or  inhibit  their  activity."  ['04, 
vol.  I,  p.  408] 

The  extent  to  which  this  doctrine  of  immunization  by 
early  wrong-doing  is  carried  is  well  illustrated  in  the  following 

*In  this  second  form,  the  doctrine  of  Catharsis  lends  no  support  to 
the  theory  of  nature's  infallibility  in  the  case  of  the  tendencies  toward 
actual  greed,  cruelty,  envy,  jealousy,  lust  and  revenge.  It  defends  only 
indulgence  in  the  contemplation  of  representations  of  such   actualities. 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  277 

recommendations  of  selfishness,  greed,  lying  and  cheating  by 
Kline  and  France : — 

"Do  we  believe  that  the  child  recapitulates  the  history  of 
the  race?  If  so  we  may  not  be  surprised  to  find  the  passion 
for  property-getting  a  natural  one,  nor  that  the  child  lies, 
cheats  and  steals  to  acquire  it  or  that  selfishness  rules  the  child's 
actions.  Selfishness  is  the  cornerstone  of  the  stniggle  for 
existence,  deception  is  at  its  very  foundation,  while  the  acquir- 
ing of  property  has  been  the  most  dominant  factor  in  the  his- 
tory of  men  and  nations.  These  passions  of  the  child  are  but 
the  pent  up  forces  of  the  greed  of  thousands  of  years.  They 
must  find  expression  and  exercise,  if  not  in  childhood,  later. 
Who  knows  but  what  our  misers  are  not  those  children  grown 
up  whom  fond  mothers  and  fathers  forced  into  giving  away 
their  playthings,  into  the  doing  of  unselfish  acts,  in  acting  out 
a  generosity  which  was  neither  felt  nor  understood.  Not  to 
let  these  activities  have  their  play  in  childhood  is  to  run  a  great 
risk.  It  does  no  good  to  make  the  child  perform  moral  acts 
when  it  does  not  appreciate  what  right  and  wrong  mean,  and 
to  punish  a  child  for  not  performing  acts  which  his  very  nature 
compels  him  to  do,  is  doing  that  child  positive  injury. 

During  the  period  of  adolescence,  generosity  and  altruism 
spring  up  naturally.  Then  why  try  to  force  the  budding 
plant  into  blossom?  Instruct  them  by  all  means,  teach  them 
the  right;  but  if  this  fails,  do  not  punish,  but  let  the  child  be 
selfish,  let  him  lie  and  cheat,  until  these  forces  spend  themselves. 
Do  not  these  experiences  of  the  child  give  to  man  in  later  life 
a  moral  virility?"     ['99,  p.  455] 

DEFECTS  IN  MAN's  ORIGINAL  NATURE 

These  three  subsidiary  hypotheses  (that  an  intrinsically 
undesirable  tendency  may  bei  the  prerequisite  of  some  desirable 
tendency,  or  its  necessary  correlate,  or  the  means  of  immuniza- 
tion from  a  similar  but  worse  tendency  later)  do  not.  how- 
ever, supply  all  the  shortcomings  of  the  'Nature  is  Right'  doc- 
trine. The  first  and  second  of  them,  while  very  probably  true 
of  certain  tendencies,  do  not  provide  greed,  insane  rage,  cnielty. 
and  many  others,  with  any  adequate  excuse.  The  experience 
of  families,  schools  and  states,  has  not  found  that  interference 


278  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF   MAN 

with  these  instincts  withers  the  hopes  of  any  noble  traits.  Nor 
does  present  knowledge  of  the  relations  of  mental  traits  lead 
us  to  expect  that  these  instincts  are  necessarily  bound  to  any 
compensating  advantages.  The  great  majority  of  the  original 
tendencies  which  can  be  defended  by  the  hope  that  they  are 
bound  as  cause  or  effect  or  correlative  to  some  valuable  quality 
of  mind  are  either  such  as  no  wise  judge  would  consider  wrong 
— for  example,  general  activity  of  body  and  of  mind ;  or  such 
as  produce  the  good  quality  only  by  being  interfered  with,  re- 
directed, modified  in  situation,  response,  or  both. 

The  third  hypothesis,  that  rage,  teasing,  bullying,  envy, 
neglect  of  absolute  values,  and  the  like,  will,  if  denied  exercise, 
inhibited  or  redirected  when  they  appear  as  man's  original 
nature  decrees,  be  all  the  more  potent  and  mischievous  in  the 
long  run,  is  then  necessary  if  nature's  infallibility  is  to  be 
saved.     It  was  in  fact  invented  to  save  it. 

Very  strong  evidence  should  be  required  before  believing 
that  the  exercise  of  any  function  thus  weakens  it.  For  such 
mental  immunization  is  directly  contrary  to  one  of  the  most 
nearly  universal  laws  of  mental  life,  the  law  of  exercise.  Still 
stronger  evidence  should  be  required  before  believing  that  the 
exercise  of  any  function  to  which  an  original  impulse  leads 
weakens  it.  For  the  exercise  of  an  original  tendency  is  almost 
always  satisfying,  other  things  being  equal.  Hence  mental 
immunization  by  an  early  attack  is  here  directly  contrary  to 
the  law  of  effect. 

There  can,  indeed,  be  no  doubt  that  the  laws  of  habit  arc 
the  rule,  that  ordinarily  the  exercise  of  any  tendency  with  satis- 
fying or  indifferent  results  strengthens  the  tendency,  and  that 
an  original  tendency  will  persist  unless  it  is  transitory  by  nature, 
is  prevented  from  functioning,  or  is  checked  or  redirected  by 
other  forces.  If  immunization  by  early  indulgence  occurs  at 
all,  it  occurs  as  an  exception  for  which  adequate  special  reasons 
must  be  given. 

No  one  has  given  adequate  special  reasons,  or  indeed  rea- 
sons of  any  kind  worth  mentioning.     In  fact,  Stanley  Hall 


THE   USE  OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  3/9 

himself  often  abandons  the  doctrine  and  returns  to  the 
orthodox  theory  that  education  must  redirect  original  tenden- 
cies. For  example,  he  writes  that  we  shall  "utilize  most  of  the 
energy  now  wasted  in  crime  by  devising  more  wholesome  and 
natural  expressions  for  the  instincts  that  motivate  it"  ['04,  vol. 
I,  p.  342].  Anger's  "culture  requires  proper  selection  of  ob- 
jects and  great  transformation,  but  never  extermination." 
['04,  vol.  I,  p.  355]  "The  popular  idea,  that  youth  must  have 
its  fling,  implies  the  need  of  greatly  and  sometimes  suddenly 
widened  liberty,  which  nevertheless  needs  careful  supervision 
and  wise  direction."  ['04,  vol.  2,  pp.  89-90]  Hall  even  says 
flatly  that  "the  spontaneous  expressions  of  this  best  age  and 
condition  of  life  (youth  in  college),  with  no  other  occupation 
than  their  own  development,  have  shown  reversions  as  often  as 
progress."     ['04,  vol.  2,  p.  399] 

Finally  it  must  be  said  that  under  the  pressure  of  obvious 
facts  even  the  most  ardent  advocates  of  nature's  infallibility 
always  somewhere  give  the  doctrine  up.  So  Stanley  Hall 
writes : — 

.  .  .  "now  another  remove  from  nature  seems  to  be  made 
necessary  by  the  manifold  knowledges  and  skills  of  our  highly 
complex  civilization  .  .  .  the  child  must  be  subjected  to  special 
disciplines  and  be  apprenticed  to  the  higher  qualities  of  adult- 
hood, for  he  is  not  only  a  product  of  nature,  but  a  candidate 
for  a  highly  developed  humanity.  To  many,  if  not  most,  of 
the  influences  here  there  can  be  at  first  but  little  inner  response. 
.  .  .  The  wisest  requirements  seem  to  the  child  more  or  less 
alien,  arbitrary,  heteronomous,  artificial,  falsetto."  ['04,  Pref- 
ace, p.  xii] 

Burk's  compromise  is  explained  in  the  two  following 
quotations : — 

"There  is  a  familiar  dispute  in  pedagogy  whether  or  not 
the  child  should  be  always  allowed  to  follow  his  inclinations. 
One  party  maintains  the  extreme  position  that  we  should  fol- 
low blindly  the  child's  interest.  Another  party  stands  aghast 
at  the  proposal.  From  this  present  standpoint  taken  must  we 
not  first  discover  whether  a  specific  tendency  in  question  is 
"fundamental"  or  "accessory?"     If  deeply  fundamental,   we 


28o  THE  ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

must  follow  nature.  If  the  tendency  is  one  in  its  accessory 
period  of  development,  we  may  perhaps  allow  objective  factors 
largely  to  determine."     [Burk,  '98,  p.  49] 

"i.  That,  taking  the  activities  independently,  there  is  an 
early  period  in  the  development  of  each  part  or  process,  when 
the  purpose  of  education  must  be  to  follow  the  fixed  innate 
hereditary  line  of  tendency,  and  to  allow  the  racial  instincts 
fullest  play  of  development  (fundamental  education). 

2.  That  there  follows  a  later  period,  in  an  activity's  devel- 
opment, when  it  passes  partially  out  of  the  fixed  control  of 
racial  habit,  and  becomes  more  plastic  to  present  environment 
(accessory  education)."     [Burk,  '98,  p.  63] 

Guillet,  who  asserts  that  'Nature  must  be  right,'  later  un- 
consciously recants  fully.  "These  instincts,  then,  which  every 
child  has  .  .  .  must  be  turned  into  worthy  grooves.  Not 
suppression,  but  a  generous  control"     ['00,  p.  445] 

So,  after  climbing  to  the  dizzy  height  of  the  faith  that 
original  nature  is  perfect  and  balancing  there  awhile  with  the 
aid  of  the  doctrine  of  preventive  inoculation,  we  all  come  down 
again  to  the  solid  fact  that  original  nature  is  very  often  and 
very  much  imperfect  and  wrong. 

The  imperfections  and  misleadings  of  original  nature  are 
in  fact  many  and  momentous.  The  common  good  requires 
that  each  child  learn  countless  new  lessons  and  unlearn  a  large 
fraction  of  his  natural  birthright.  The  main  reason  for  this 
is  that  original  equipment  is  archaic,  adapting  the  human 
animal  for  the  life  that  might  be  led  by  a  family  group  of  wild 
men  in  the  woods,  amongst  the  brute  forces  of  land,  water, 
wind,  rain,  plants,  animals,  and  other  groups  of  wild  men.  The 
life  to  which  original  nature  adapts  man  is  probably  far  more 
like  the  life  of  the  wolf  or  ape,  than  like  the  life  that  now  is,  as 
a  result  of  human  art,  habit  and  reasoning,  perpetuating  them- 
selves in  language,  tools,  buildings,  books  and  customs. 

It  is  a  useful,  if  trite,  exercise  to  consider  this  enormous 
gap  between  the  fate  of  man  left  to  what  the  human  germ 
plasm  has  learned  and  the  opportunity  to  which  the  learning 
of  men  themselves  calls  each  new  generation.  How  easily  we 
revert   to   a   nearly   simian  brutality   when   the   records   and 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  281 

restraints  of  civilization  fail  is  the  best  proof  and  illustration 
of  the  unfitness  of  original  nature  to  rule  the  behavior  of  man. 

Other  illustrations  in  abundance  can  be  found  of  the  archaic 
unreason  of  original  nature,  or,  more  scientifically,  of  the 
thoroughgoing  transformation  which  life  undergoes  in  propor- 
tion as  human  reason  works  back  upon  the  conditions  of  things 
and  the  wants  of  men.  By  the  germs'  decree  we  fear,  not  the 
carriers  of  malaria  and  yellow  fever,  but  thunder  and  the  dark , 
we  pity,  not  the  gifted  youth  deljarred  from  education,  but  the 
beggar's  bloody  sore;  we  are  less  excited  by  a  great  injustice 
than  by  a  little  blood;  Ave  suffer  more  from  such  scorn  as  un- 
tipped  waiters,  cabmen,  and  barbers  show,  than  from  our  own 
idleness,  ignorance  and  folly.  ' 

It  is  also  true  that  eventd  a  brute's  life  in  the  woods  human 
instincts  are  not  perfectly  adapted,  or  without  gross  errors. 
To  exist,  a  species  needs  to  behave  so  as  to  exist,  but  not  so  as 
to  exist  well.  A  species  can,  and  most  species  do,  make  many 
blunders  in  life.  'Good'  means  in  evolution  only  'good  enough 
to  keep  the  species  from  elimination,'  and  'best'  means  only  the 
surest  aids  to  survival  that  have  happened  to  happen. 

The  original  tendencies  of  man  have  not  been  right,  are  not 
right,  and  probably  never  will  be  right.  By  them  alone  few  of 
the  best  wants  in  human  life  would  have  been  felt,  and  fewer 
still  satisfied.  Xor  would  the  crude,  conflicting,  perilous  wants 
which  original  nature  so  largely  represents  and  serves,  have 
had  much  more  fulfilment.  Original  nature  has  achieved  what 
goodness  the  world  knows  as  a  state  achieves  order,  by  killing, 
confining  or  reforming  some  of  its  elements.  It  progresses, 
not  by  laissez  fairc,  but  by  changing  the  environment  in  which 
it  operates  and  by  renewedly  changing  itself  in  each  generation. 
Man  is  now  as  civilized,  rational  and  humane  as  he  is  because 
man  in  the  past  has  changed  things  into  shapes  more  satisfying, 
and  changed  parts  of  his  own  nature  into  traits  more  satisfying, 
to  man  as  a  whole.  Man  is  thus  eternally  altering  himself  to 
suit  himself.  His  nature  is  n(jt  right  in  his  own  eyes.  Only 
one  thing  in  it.  indeerl,  is  unreser\'edly  good,  the  power  to  make 


282  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

it  better.  This  power,  the  power  of  learning  or  modification 
in  favor  of  the  satisfying,  the  capacity  represented  by  the  law 
of  effect,  is  the  essential  principle  of  reason  and  right  in  the 
world. 

THE  USE  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  IN  DETAIL 

Since  original  nature  is  neither  all  wrong,  as  our  Puritanic 
ancestors  tried  to  believe,  nor  all  right,  as  the  modern  disciples 
of  educational  laisses  faire  try  to  believe,  we  cannot  deal  with 
it  wholesale.  Reason  has  to  improve  on  nature  without  wasting 
it,  by  using  each  of  its  tendencies  in  view  of  all  the  rest  and  in 
view  of  the  complicated  apparatus  of  things  and  customs  with 
which  original  nature  interacts. 

The  problems  of  whether  to  cherish  the  tendency  as  it  is,  to 
inhibit  it  altogether  or  to  modify  it  in  part  and,  in  the  last  case, 
the  problem  of  just  what  modification  to  make — may  occasion- 
ally be  solved  easily,  but  oftener  demand  elaborate  study,  rare 
freedom  from  superstition,  and  both  care  and  insight  in  balanc- 
ing goods.  Indeed,  many  of  the  answers  which  to  us  now  seem 
self-evident  and  sure  were  got  only  by  long  experiment  and  the 
acuity  of  some  sage  of  the  past. 

It  seems  clear  to  us  now  that  the  extreme  cultivation  of  the 
instincts  of  submissive  and  frightened  behavior  in  the  masses 
through  centuries  past  restrained  progress  and  denied  the  com- 
mon good;  we  can  hardly  help  inferring  that  the  leaders  of 
men  were  much  less  humane  then  than  now,  and  perpetuated 
submission  and  fear  rather  than  curiosity,  experimentation  and 
kindliness,  wholly  in  their  own  selfish  interest.  But  greater 
ignorance  rather  than  greater  ill-will  was  probably  the  major 
cause  of  the  difference  between  then  and  now.  The  kings, 
priests  and  teachers  of  those  days  did  not  know  that  men  could 
be  trustworthy  through  freedom,  and  virtuous  through  love 
and  self-respect. 

Again,  we  are  able  to  see  the  value  of  studying,  rather  than 
propitiating,  the  world's  forces,  simply  because  the  Galileos, 
Kepplers  and  Darwins  have  taught  us.     It  is  well  to  recall  that 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  283 

Galileo  was  persecuted  by  'the  best  people'  of  his  time  and  that 
within  a  life-span  there  were  honorable,  devoted  servants  of 
human  welfare  who  would  have  thanked  God  in  the  best  of 
faith  if  fire  had  come  down  from  Heaven  to  destroy  Darwin 
and  the  Origin  of  Species  with  him. 

Consider  the  'best  present  practice,'  which  permits  and 
encourages  the  instincts  of  curiosity,  mental  control  and  multi- 
form mental  activity  to  work  for  years  with  the  cheap  fancies 
about  flowers,  seeds,  and  animals,  devised  by  ignorant  women ; 
or  with  the  petty  details  of  bygone  mythologies ;  or  with  little 
or  nothing  in  national  life  save  its  military  campaigns ;  or  with 
the  elaborate  mnemonic  and  deductive  exercises  of  the  Latin 
language;  or  with  unreformed  spelling.  To  the  author  it 
seems  clear  that  the  direction  of  these  instincts  into  these  chan- 
nels is  an  intolerable  waste.  But  it  does  not  seem  so  to  others 
with  equal  or  better  rights  to  decide. 

Or  take  the  very  kindliness,  of  which  some  of  us,  in  our 
zeal  for  the  brotherhood  of  man,  cannot  have  too  much.  We 
may  be  shocked  to  find  a  part  of  the  plea  of  the  drunken  don 
in  Wells'  story  for  'hate  and  coarse  thinking'  made  soberly  by 
a  gifted  psychologist.  But  we,  who  would  choke  off  personal 
hate  into  antagonism  toward  qualities  and  actions  alone,  must 
find  answers  to  Professor  McDougall's  contention  that  anger 
and  fighting  have  been  blessings  in  disguise. 

"It  might  seem  at  first  sight  that  this  instinct,  which  leads 
men  and  societies  so  often  to  enter  blindly  upon  deadly  con- 
tests that  in  many  cases  are  destructive  to  both  parties,  could 
only  be  a  survival  from  man's  brutal  ancestry,  and  that  an  early 
and  a  principal  feature  of  social  evolution  would  have  been  the 
eradication  of  this  instinct  from  the  human  mind.  But  a 
little  reflection  will  show  us  that  its  operation,  far  from  l)eing 
wholly  injurious,  has  l^een  one  of  the  essential  factors  in  the 
evolution  of  the  higher  forms  of  social  organisation,  and, 
in  fact,  of  those  specifically  social  qualities  of  man,  the  high 
development  of  which  is  an  essential  condition  of  the  higher 
socialHfe."     ['08,  p.  281.  f.] 

This  contention  McDougall  supports  by  arguing^  that  tarly 


284  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE    OF    MAN 

in  man's  history  the  power  of  subjecting-  one's  impulses  to  a 
recognized  law  arose  from  fighting  within  the  family  group; 
that,  later  on,  fighting  was  a  necessary  condition  for  the  develop- 
ment of  cooperative  life;  and  that,  even  today,  energy,  inde- 
pendence and  manliness  depend  upon  the  presence  of  this  in- 
stinct in  full  strength. 

"When  in  any  region  social  organisation  had  progressed  so 
far  that  the  mortal  combat  of  individuals  was  replaced  by  the 
mortal  combat  of  tribes,  villages,  or  groups  of  any  kind,  success 
in  combat  and  survival  and  propagation  must  have  been  favored 
by,  and  have  depended  upon,  not  only  the  vigour  and  ferocity 
of  individual  fighters,  but  also,  and  to  an  even  greater  degree, 
upon  the  capacity  of  individuals  for  united  action,  upon  good 
comradeship,  upon  personal  trustworthiness,  and  upon  the 
capacity  of  individuals  to  subordinate  their  impulsive  tendencies 
and  egoistic  promptings  to  the  ends  of  the  group  and  to  the 
commands  of  the  accepted  leader.  Hence,  wherever  such  mor- 
tal conflict  of  groups  prevailed  for  many  generations,  it  must 
have  developed  in  the  surviving  groups  just  those  social  and 
moral  qualities  of  individuals  which  are  the  essential  conditions 
of  all  effective  cooperation  and  of  the  higher  forms  of  social 
organisation.  For  success  in  war  implies  definite  organisation, 
the  recognition  of  a  leader,  and  faithful  observance  of  his 
commands.  ..." 

"This  process  must  have  developed  not  only  the  individual 
fighting  qualities,  but  also  the  qualities  that  make  for  conscien- 
tious conduct  and  stable  and  efficient  social  organisation.  These 
effects  were  clearly  marked  in  the  barbarians  who  overran  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  Germanic  tribes  were  perhaps  more 
pugnacious  and  possessed  of  the  military  virtues  in  a  higher 
degree  than  any  other  people  that  has  existed  before  or  since. 
They  were  the  most  terrible  enemies,  as  Julius  Caesar  found ; 
they  could  never  be  subdued  because  they  fought,  not  merely 
to  gain  any  specific  ends,  but  because  they  loved  fighting,  i.e., 
because  they  were  innately  pugnacious.  Their  religion  and  the 
character  of  their  gods  reflected  their  devotion  to  war ;  centuries 
of  Christianity  have  failed  to  eradicate  this  quality,  and  the 
smallest  differences  of  opinion  and  belief  continue  to  furnish 
the  pretexts  for  fresh  combats.  Mr.  Kidd  argues  strongly 
that  it  is  the  social  qualities  developed  by  this  process  of  mili- 
tary group-selection  which,   more  than   anything   else,   have 


THE    USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  285 

enabled  these  peoples  to  build  up  a  new  civilisation  on  the  ruins 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  to  carry  on  the  progress  of  social 
organisation  and  of  civilisation  to  the  point  it  has  now  reached." 
['08,  pp.  286-291,  passim] 

European  people  and  the  Japanese  versus  the  Chinese  and 
Hindoos,  are  used  as  evidence  of  this  supposed  relation. 

McDougall's  argument  seems  to  me  fallacious  in  that,  as 
he  himself  indeed  later  suggests,  pugnacious  behavior  is  a 
symptom,  rather  than  a  cause,  of  energy,  and  subjection  to  law 
and  cooperation  for  the  good  of  the  community  could  have 
developed,  and  perhaps  did  develop,  rather  from  hunting,  agri- 
culture, industry  and  sport  than  from  combat  with  other  men. 
Whatever  be  the  past  and  present  goods  and  evils  of  fighting, 
however,  a  too  abstract  and  indiscriminate  cultivation  of  gentle- 
ness, love  and  fine  thinking  is  surely  risky.  We  must  cherish 
kindliness  without  incurring  pusillanimity;  and  must  correct 
pugnacity  without  putting  the  men  in  whom  we  have  directed 
it  toward  abstract  evils  at  the  mercy  of  any  embryonic  Napo- 
leons in  whom  we  have  left  its  selfish  aggressiveness  unim- 
paired. 

So  much  for  a  warning  that  the  opportunities  for  sagacity 
in  evaluating  human  original  tendencies  as  ends,  and  in  adapt- 
ing them  as  means  to  other  ends,  are  practically  inexhaustible. 
The  warning  also  implies  that  any  account  of  the  use  of  par- 
ticular original  tendencies  must  be  incomplete.  The  account 
to  be  given  here  will  be  still  more  so,  of  deliberate  purpose.  I 
shall  not  try  to  give  here  even  a  resume  of  the  little  that  is 
known,  but  only  two  sample  notes — one  to  illustrate  the  prob- 
lems of  the  use  of  original  tendencies  as  ends ;  the  other  to  illus- 
trate their  use  as  means, — and  a  review  of  some  of  the  general 
facts  needed  to  economize  planning  and  experimentation  with 
such  problems.  Any  further  details  may  best  be  left  to  treatises 
on  special  lines  of  educational  endeavor.  Books  on  the  'Teach- 
ing of  Reading'  or  the  'Teaching  of  Arithmetic,*  or  'Moral 
Education,'  or  'Education  in  Music'  or  'The  Prevention  of 
Crime,'  or  'The  Reform  of  Marriage,'  or  the  like,  should  in 


286  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

each  case  begin  with  an  account  of  the  way  in  which  original 
nature  is  to  be  used  toward  the  attainment  of  the  particular 
features  of  eventual  nature  which  are  its  topics. 

The  two  notes  will  deal  with  the  use,  or  rather  misuse,  of 
emulation  as  an  end  and  of  ideomotor  action  as  a  means.  The 
general  facts  reviewed  will  be,  in  order : 

Original  versus  'Natural'  tendencies. 

The  Importance  of  the  Original  Satisfiers  and  Annoyers. 

The  True  Significance  of  Plasticity. 

Which  Instincts  are  of  Most  Worth  ? 

Original  Nature  as  the  Ultimate  Source  of  All  Values. 

ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  AS  ENDS  :  EMULATION  IN  THE  CASE  OF 
SCHOOL  'marks' 

Present  customs  with  respect  to  the  measurement  of  a 
pupil's  achievement  in  school  studies  fall  into  two  groups.  On 
the  one  hand,  we  have  a  somewhat  detailed  record  kept,  and 
made  known  to  the  student,  in  terms  of  a  scale  from  o  to  lOO, 
or  from  F  through  D-,  D,  D+,  C-,  C,  C+,  B-,  B,  B+, 
A—  to  A  or  A+.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  a  deliberately 
crude  record  kept  and  made  known  to  the  student — such  as 
F  or  P,  or  F,  D,  C,  B,  A.  Or  we  have  a  crude  or  detailed 
record  kept,  but  only  some  crude  features  of  it  made  known  to 
the  student.  During  the  last  thirty  years  there  has  been  a 
very  strong  movement  from  detailed  to  crude  records  of 
achievement,  and  from  publicity  to  secrecy. 

The  reasons  alleged  for  the  change  have  been  that  detailed 
grades  and  publicity  encourage  a  pupil  to  work  for  'marks,* 
and  for  excellence  in  the  sense  of  excelling  others,  instead  of 
for  knowledge  or  power,  and  for  excellence  in  the  sense  of 
improvement 

In  my  opinion  the  change  was  an  extremely  wasteful  way 
of  avoiding  one  evil  by  the  unnecessary  sacrifice  of  all  its 
attendant  goods — a  way  whose  wastefulness'  should  have  been 
apparent  upon  consideration  of  the  nature  of  the  situations 


THE   USE   OF  ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  287 

involved  and  the  original  tendencies  used.  The  essential  fault 
of  the  older  schemes  for  school  grades  or  marks  was  that  the 
*86'  or  'B— '  did  not  mean  any  objectively  defined  amount  of 
knowledge  or  power  or  skill — ^that,  for  example,  John's  attain- 
ment of  91  in  second-year  German  did  not  inform  him  (or 
anyone  else)  about  how  difficult  a  passage  he  could  translate, 
how  many  words  he  knew  the  English  equivalents  of  and  how 
accurately  he  could  pronounce,  or  about  any  other  fact  save 
that  he  was  supposed  to  be  slightly  more  competent  than  some- 
one else  marked  89  was,  or  than  he  would  have  been  if  he  had 
been  so  marked. 

The  marks  given  by  any  one  teacher,  though  standing  for 
some  obscure  standards  of  absolute  achievement — ^that  is, 
amounts  of  actual  knowledge,  power,  skill,  and  the  like — in 
the  teacher's  mind,  could  stand,  in  the  mind  of  anyone  else 
unacquainted  with  these  inner  meaning^,  only  for  degrees  of 
relative  achievement — for  being  at  the  top  or  at  the  bottom,  for 
being  above  or  below  something.  Inevitably  other  pupils  were 
chosen  as  that  something,  and,  except  in  the  case  of  the  one 
objectively  defined  difference  between  enough  and  not  enough 
to  allow  promotion  to  the  next  class,  school  marks  functioned 
as  measures  of  superiority  and  inferiority  amongst  pupils,  and 
of  little  else.  A  pupil  who  made  excellence  an  aim  of  his  school 
work  was  encouraged  by  every  feature  of  the  school's  measure- 
ments of  his  work  to  think  of  excellence  as  excelling  others — 
relative  achievemeftt — outdoing  someone  else.  Finding  that 
pupils  did  so,  and  being  rightly  suspicious  of  this  gross  form 
of  emulation  as  an  end  in  education,  school  officers  took  the 
easy,  but  wasteful,  way  of  depriving  the  pupil  of  any  save  the 
vaguest  knowledge  of  his  achievement.  To  keep  him  from 
focussing  his  attention  upon  his  achievement  in  comparison 
with  his  fellow  students'  achievements,  they  kept  from  him  any 
detailed  record  whatsoever  of  his  achievement. 

To  work  for  marks  is  not  intrinsically  bad.  If  the  marks 
are,  as  they  should  be,  correct  measures  of  either  the  amount 
of  knowledge,  power,  appreciation  and  skill  attained  or  the 


288  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

amount  of  progress  made,  to  work  for  marks  means  simply  to 
work  for  knowledge,  power,  increase  in  knowledge  and  power 
and  the  like  as  recognized  and  measured.  The  detailed  nature 
and  the  report  to  the  individual  of  his  school  marks  were  not 
the  vices  of  the  old  system.  Its  vice  was  its  relativity  and 
indefiniteness — the  fact  already  described  that  a  given  mark 
did  not  mean  any  defined  amount  of  knowledge,  or  power,  or 
skill —  so  that  it  was  bound  to  be  used  for  relative  achievement 
only. 

The  proper  remedy  is  not  to  eliminate  all  stimulus  to 
rivalry,  and  along  with  it  a  large  part  of  the  stimulus  to  achieve- 
ment in  general,  but  to  redirect  the  rivalry  into  the  tendencies 
to  go  higher  on  an  objective  scale  for  absolute  achievement,  to 
surpass  one's  own  past  performance,  to  get  into  what,  in 
athletic  parlance,  is  called  a  'higher  class,'  to  compete  within 
that  class,  and  to  compete  cooperatively  as  one  of  a  group  in 
rivalry  with  another  group. 

Suppose,  for  example,  that  instead  of  the  traditional  '89's 
or  'good's  a  pupil  had  records  of  just  how  many  ten-digit  addi- 
tions he  could  compute  correctly  in  five  minutes,  of  just  how 
difficult  a  passage  he  could  translate  correctly  at  sight,  and  of 
how  long  it  required,  and  the  like.  He  could,  of  course,  still 
compare  himself  with  others,  but  he  would  not  be  compelled  to 
do  so.  He  could  be  encouraged,  instead,  to  compare  his  present 
achievement  with  last  month's,  to  beat  his  record,  or  the  record 
for  an  average  ten-year-old,  and  to  work  for  entrance  to  a 
'twenty-example'  class  comparable  to  the  'two-thirty'  class  of 
trotting  horses.  In  fact,  in  so  far  as  excelling  others  would 
under  these  conditions  imply  and  emphasize  making  absolute 
progress  upward  on  a  scale  for  real  achievement,  and  would 
mean  that  a  pupil  outdid  by  a  special  effort  those  who  ordinarily 
could  do  as  well  as  he — those  in  his  own  'class'  as  that  term  is 
used  in  sport, — even  direct  rivalry  with  others  would  be  inno- 
cent and  healthy. 

Rivalry  with  one's  own  past  and  with  a  "bogey,"  or  accepted 
standard,  is  entirely  feasible,  once  we  have  absolute  scales  for 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  289 

educational  achievement  comparable  to  the  scales  for  the  speed 
at  which  one  can  run  or  the  height  to  which  one  can  jump. 
Such  scales  are  being  constructed.  The  strength  of  such  im- 
personal rivalry  as  a  motive,  while  not  as  great  for  the  two 
or  three  who  would  compete  to  lead  the  class  under  the  old 
system  as  that  system's  emphasis  on  rivalry  with  others,  is  far 
greater  for  the  rest  of  the  gfroup.  To  be  seventeenth  instead 
of  eighteenth,  or  twenty-third  instead  of  twenty-fifth,  does  not 
approach  in  moving  force  the  zeal  to  beat  one's  own  record, 
to  see  one's  practice  curve  rise  week  by  week,  and  to  get  up  to 
the  standard  which  permits  one  to  advance  to  a  new  feat.  Mr. 
T.  H.  Kirby*  found  in  the  case  of  fifth-grade  pupils  that,  by 
thus  reporting  to  each  pupil  his  absolute  achievement  in 
measured  tests  in  addition,  sixty  minutes  of  drill  resulted  in  an 
improvement  of  over  50  percent  in  speed  with  a  slight  gain  in 
accuracy  as  well. 

ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  AS  MEANS  I  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

If  there  were  in  human  nature  an  original  tendency  to  act 
out  in  conduct  any  idea  present  in  consciousness,  an  easy  and 
universal  means  to  moral  improvement  would  be  to  inoculate 
the  mind  with  ideas  of  good  acts.  If  all  motor  representations 
tend  to  realize  themselves  in  movement  the  most  remunerative 
form  of  education  for  skill  and  morals  is  to  fill  the  mind  with 
representations  of  the  desirable  movements. 

Many  thinkers  about  moral  education  have  assumed  the 
truth  of  the  idea-motor  theory  and  so  have  trusted  that  pre- 
senting stories  of  noble  acts  was  such  a  universal  means  of 
ennobling  conduct.  For  example,  Thomas  says  that  "An  idea 
.  .  .  always  implies,  in  different  degrees,  an  activity  which 
tends  to  spread,  a  power  which  tends  to  pass  into  action  and 
cause  bodily  movement,  ...  To  think  of  play  or  of  study  is 
truly  for  them  (children)  to  play  and  to  study,"  ['07.  p.  5  f.] 
Sisson  notes  that  the  child  "has  a  distinct  tendency  to  do  what 

*In  an  investigation  not  yet   reported  in  print. 
19 


390  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

he  sees  done,  or  hears  about,  or  whatever  in  any  way  comes 
into  the  range  of  his  perception.  All  these  tendencies  which 
are  really  summed  up  in  the  last  sentence,  constitute  what  is 
called  suggestibility,  or  the  tendency  to  repeat  in  one's  own 
person  any  act  the  image  of  which  enters  the  mind.  The  most 
clearly  recognized  form  of  this  great  tendency  is,  of  course, 
imitation."     ['10,  p.  13  f.] 

The  logical  consequence  of  this  doctrine  is  confidence  that 
tales  of  heroism,  thrift,  sacrifice,  studiousness  and  other  virtu- 
ous deeds  will  tend  to  create  them  in  the  hearers — will  surely 
create  them  except  for  the  existence  of  ideas  of  contrary  acts 
or  strong  contrary  habits.     So  Thomas  says : — 

"If  the  state  of  perfect  monoideism  could  be  realized,  the 
execution  of  an  act  would  always  follow  immediately  the  con- 
ception of  it,  and  we  have  seen  that  such  is  frequently  the  case 
with  children;  but  in  the  state  of  polyideism  which  is  the  mind's 
ordinary  condition  the  case  is  different.  Consciousness  is  the 
theatre  of  an  incessant  conflict  which  we  take  account  of  only 
at  the  moment  of  deliberation."     ['07,  p.  13] 

Keatinge  writes  to  the  same  effect: 

"A  certain  portion  of  the  mental  content  is  attended  to  and 
becomes  the  idea  which  fills  the  focus  of  consciousness.  Sup- 
pose it  to  be  the  idea  of  giving  the  whole  of  one's  property  for 
charitable  purposes.  As  an  idea  this  possesses  the  constant 
energy  of  all  ideas  in  the  tendency  to  realize  itself.  But  the 
field  is  not  clear  for  it.  It  is  obstructed  (a)  by  the  inherited 
impulses  and  tendencies  of  self-protection,  which  incline  one 
to  make  certain  that  one's  own  welfare  is  assured;  (b)  by  the 
impulses  arising  from  habit,  which  look  askance  at  the  tendency 
to  give  more  than  the  small  portion  of  income  which  is  usually 
assigned  to  charity;  (c)  by  a  number  of  family  prudential  ideas, 
such  as  the  duty  of  educating  one's  children  or  of  assisting 
poor  relatives;  (d)  by  the  fear  that  indiscriminate  charity 
may  do  harm.  As  a  result  the'  incipient  tendency  to  the 
renunciation  of  worldly  goods  is  strangled  at  birth,  and  its  only 
contribution  towards  the  mental  system  in  which  it  occurs  is 
that  of  initiating  a  train  of  association.  On  the  other  hand 
(a)  I  may  be  the  possessor  of  professional  skill  which  enables 
me  to  earn  my  livelihood  with  ease,  and  may  therefore  be  in 


THE   USE   OF  ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  291 

no  fear  of  indigence;  (b)  I  may  have  inherited  the  fortune 
suddenly  and  therefore  may  have  no  established  habits  of  deal- 
ing with  money  on  a  large  scale;  (c)  I  may  dislike  my  children 
and  my  relatives:  (d)  I  may  be  ignorant  of  the  economics  of 
social  life.  In  this  case  the  idea  will  be  operative,  and  yet  it 
is  ex  hypothesi  the  same  idea  as  in  the  former  case;  the  same 
impulse  to  give  combined  with  the  same  conception  of  suffering, 
and  the  same  anticipation  of  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from 
munificence  to  others.  Stated  schematically,  an  idea  A  intro- 
duced into  a  mental  system  has  a  tendency  by  association  to 
call  up  other  ideas  and  impulses.  B,  C,  D,  which  may  be  (i) 
contrariant,  critical,  and  inhibitory;  (2)  sympathetic  and 
furthering.  This  is  its  total  association  value,  and  it  works 
equally  in  all  directions;  it  calls  up  ideas  that  are  friendly  to 
it  and  also  ideas  that  are  hostile.  This  enumeration  does  not 
exhaust  its  latent  powers.  It  possesses  also  a  suggestive  energy 
which  may  be  converted  into  suggestive  force,  and  which 
overcomes  or  avoids  the  resistance  offered  to  it  so  that  action 
results* 

"These  two  qualities  of  an  idea  must  be  clearly  distin- 
guished. The  associative  tendency  is  not  necessarily  a  tendency 
to  action  or  belief.  I  may  mass  together  a  number  of  ideas 
that  deal  with  a  certain  line  of  conduct,  but  the  result  may  be 
no  more  than  a  clear  understanding  of  the  positions;  for  in- 
creased insight  by  no  means  leads  to  action  if  there  is  in  ex- 
istence a  system  of  opposed  ideas  and  impulses,  and  such  a 
system  is  often  called  into  existence  in  proportion  to  the  size 
of  the  favoring  system;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  an  idea  in 
so  far  as  it  is  suggestive  tends  to  realize  itself  quite  apart  from 
insight  or  understanding."     ['07,  p.  30  f.] 

This  confidence  that  an  idea  will  be  realized  in  behavior  if 
only  we  can  get  it  into  the  mind  and  keep  the  opposite  ideas 
out,  has  as  its  consequence,  in  turn,  the  expectation  of  vast 
moral  improvement  from  the  study  of  literary  descriptions  of 
virtue,  the  subservience  of  the  scientific  and  practical  aims  to 
the  moral  aim  in  the  teaching  of  history,  and  in  the  end  the 
deliberate  insertion  in  the  curriculum  of  subject-matter  chosen 
because  it  g[ives  impressive  ideas  of  good  acts  and  so,  sup- 
posedly, creates  them. 

^Italics  not  in  the  onginaL 


292  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

It  is,  however,  obvious  to  sagacious  observers  that  ideas  of 
good  acts  do  not  always,  or  even  perhaps  often,  create  good 
acts  in  this  easy  way,  and  that  the  effect  in  any  case  varies 
greatly  with  the  individual  and  with  the  sources  of  the  idea. 
So  the  very  moralist  who  has  boldly  proclaimed  that  ideo-motor 
action  is  a  fundamental  law  of  conduct,  may  accept  none  of  its 
logical  consequences.  Mr.  Keatinge,  for  example,  though 
specially  interested  in  ideo-motor  action,  imitation,  and  sug- 
gestion, is  compelled  by  his  sense  of  fact  to  limit  and  encumber 
their  action  to  such  an  extent  that  almost  all  of  the  practical 
advice  given  in  his  book.  Suggestion  in  Education,  might  al- 
most, if  not  quite,  as  well  have  appeared  under  the  title  Habit-' 
Formation  in  Education,  or  even  The  Falsity  of  the  Ideo-motor 
Theory. 

The  whole  practice  of  Suggestion,  in  medicine,  government 
and  business  as  well  as  in  teaching,  is,  indeed,  a  mixture  of 
wise  action,  based  on  certain  undoubted  powers  of  ideas  to 
produce  effects  in  behavior  and  of  more  or  less  crass  charla- 
tanism. The  same  theory  of  ideo-motor  action  that  is  re- 
quired for  the  former  apparently  can  be  used  to  justify  the 
latter. 

It  is,  of  course,  my  contention  that  the  theory  itself  is 
wrong — ^that  an  idea  does  not  evoke  the  act  which  is  like  it,  but 
the  act  which  has  followed  it  without  annoyance — that  success- 
ful suggestion  toward  an  act  consists  in  arousing,  not  the  state 
of  mind  which  is  like  that  act,  but  the  one  which  that  act  follows 
by  instinct  or  habit,  and  in  preventing  from  being  aroused  the 
state  of  mind  or  body  which  some  contrary  act  so  follows.  If, 
whenever  John  Smith  thought  of  running  away  howling,  he 
did  in  fact  stay  and  confront  the  foe,  a  most  potent  suggestion 
to  courage  would  be  to  get  him  to  think  of  himself  as  running 
away  and  howling. 

Everyone  admits  that  in  a  vague  sense  suggestion  may  be 
potent.  What  is  needed  is  some  principle  that  will  distinguish 
between  its  successes  and  its  failures,  between  its  scientific  use 
and  imposture.     The  ideo-motor  principle  in  its  stock  state- 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  293 

ments  does  not,  the  result  being  that  efficiency  in  the  use  of 
suggestion  either  is  falsely  expected  to  result  in  cases  where  it 
can  be  proved  not  to  do  so,  or  is  left  dependent  on  an  unpre- 
dictable combination  of  prestige,  personal  magnetism,  rare  skill 
and  intuition  born  of  experience. 

If  the  doctrine  of  this  book  is  true,  suggestion  will  succeed 
in  so  far  as  it  is  a  process  of  manipulating  a  person's  ideas  and 
attitudes  so  as  to  get  him  into  a  situation  to  which  the  desired 
response  rather  than  another  is  connected  by  the  laws  of  instinct, 
exercise  and  effect.  It  will  fail  in  so  far  as  it  pretends  to  do 
anything  more  than  this.  An  examination  of  the  successes  and 
failures  of  suggestion  to  see  whether  they  do,  in  fact,  follow 
this  rule  would  be  instructive,  but  I  have  found  so  great  diffi- 
culty in  getting  the  necessary  data  that  I  shall  not  attempt  it. 

ORIGINAL  VERSUS  ^NATURAL*  TENDENCIES 

The  so-called  'nahiraV  proclivities  of  man  represent  enor- 
mous changes  from  his  original  proclivities.  The  effects  of 
learning  are  as  surely  present  in  the  common  liking  of  boys  for 
hunting,  fishing,  adventure  and  sport  in  the  present  senses  of 
those  words,  as  in  their  rare  liking  for  geometry,  computation 
and  grammatical  precision.  Original  nature  knows  nothing 
of  gtins,  fishhooks,  rods  and  reels,  canoes,  tennis  or  foot-balls. 
Its  tendencies  may  go  so  far  as  to  specially  enjoy  throwing  a 
small  heavy  thing  held  in  the  hand,  and  swinging  a  club-like 
thing  held  by  one  end,  but  the  majority  of  the  so-called  'natural' 
interests  are  largely  acquired. 

The  doctrine  that  the  'natural'  is  the  good,  and  should  be 
the  aim  of  education,  is  then  very  different  from  the  doctrine 
that  original  nature  is  right.  It  is  a  shifting,  indeterminate 
doctrine,  meaning  one  thing  in  5000  B.  C,  another  thing  today, 
and  something  else  a  generation  hence.  It  amounts  roughly 
to  declaring  that  the  mixed  product  of  original  nature  and  the 
unconscious  tuition  of  common  circumstances  and  customs  has 
ultimate  value.  That  is  false.  Equally  false  is  the  doctrine 
that  the  'natural*  is  essentially  evil. 


^94  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

One  unfortunate  result  of  the  use  of  'natural'  for  a  mixture 
of  original  and  taught  proclivities  is  to  unduly  discourage  edu- 
cational and  other  social  reforms.  The  original  must  be 
reckoned  with ;  if  odious  it  must  be  got  rid  of  against  resistance. 
In  so  far  as  laziness,  tyranny,  prostitution,  superstition  and 
the  like  are  consequences  of  original  connections,  the  respective 
reforms  are  made  hard.  But  much  of  the  so-called  'natural' 
iniquity  in  man  is  produced  by  training,  the  only  action  needed 
for  reform  being  to  abolish  the  artificial  stimuli  to  the  evil 
behavior.  Sacrifice  of  living  men  to  idols,  belief  in  the  divine 
right  of  kings  and  legal  ownership  of  human  beings  were 
natural  enough  in  their  day,  but  no  special  effort  is  required  to 
keep  the  children  of  New  York  City  from  reverting  to  such 
beliefs  and  practices. 

The  same  argument  holds  for  false  expectations  of  stability 
in  the  case  of  'natural'  behavior  that  is  useful.  It  is  'natural,' 
under  certain  conditions  of  American  life,  to  expect  and 
exercise  a  certain  degree  of  freedom  in  speech  and  print,  and 
to  entrust  the  punishment  of  the  burglar  in  one's  house  to  the 
courts,  but  this  naturalness  has  been  earned  by  a  laborious  strug- 
gle in  the  past  and  is  maintained  against  resistance.  A  pub- 
licist who  relied  upon  either  of  these  tendencies  to  the  same 
extent  that  he  relied  on  instinctive  babbling  or  gregariousness 
would  make  an  egregious  blunder. 

The  question  as  to  just  how  much  of  any  'natural'  behavior 
is  really  original  is  thus  often  of  great  practical  moment. 
Today,  theft  is  far  the  more  'natural,'  but  homicide  is  perhaps 
the  more  original,  of  the  two  crimes.  War  between  govern- 
mental units  is  perhaps  far  less  original  than  it  has  been  thought 
to  be.  Natural  as  it  is,  the  desire  to  get  something  for  nothing, 
as  in  gambling,  may  be  largely  a  product  of  training.  Female 
devotion  to  cooking  and  sewing  has  been  so  natural  as  to  be 
esteemed  a  divine  ordinance,  but  its  only  original  elements  may 
be  less  enjoyment  of  hunting  behavior  and  a  keener  enjoyment 
of  seeing  human  beings  comfortable. 


THE   USE   OF  ORIGINAL    TENDENCIES  295 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  SATISFIERS  AND  ANNOYERS 

It  should  be  clear  from  facts  already  stated  that  the  original 
tendencies  of  certain  states  of  affairs  to  satisfy  or  to  annoy  are 
among  the  most  potent  determinants  of  human  behavior  and  of 
those  changes  in  it  which  result  from  education.  Satisfaction 
and  discomfort  are  in  fact  the  great  educative  forces.  They 
are  such  originally,  and  become  still  more  so  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  behavior  which  is  accompanied  or  closely  followed 
by  them  becomes  itself  satisfying  or  annoying  as  the  case  may 
be.  They  are  of  very  great  value  in  the  control  of  human 
nature  because  they  are  the  roots  of  the  phenomena  which  we 
call  interests,  desires,  wants  and  motives. 

The  original   tendencies   whereby   this  satisfies   and   that 
annoys  are  thus  the  ultimate  selective  forces  in  human  be- 
havior, providing  the  first  rewards  and  punishments  for  edu- 
cation's use.     From  them,  directly  or  indirectly,  all  later  wants, 
interests  and  ideals  derive  their  motive  power.     There  is  ncT] 
other  means  of  arousing  zeal  for  a  given  course  of  thought  or] 
conduct  than  by  connecting  satisfaction  with  it ;  the  mind  doe/ 
not  do  something  for  nothing. 

The  original  satisfiers  and  annoyers  show  themselves 
emphatically  to  any  competent  observer  who  divests  his  attitude 
of  the  prejudices  due  to  his  individual  make-up,  to  the  elaborate 
reconstruction  of  his  own  satisfiers  and  annoyers  by  the  cir- 
cumstances of  modern  life  and  education,  and  to  the  abstract 
caricatures  of  man's  wants  which  a  too  scholastic  science  has 
drawn.  But  such  impartiality  and  sympathetic  insight  into 
fundamental  human  cravings  are  hard  to  attain.  The  quiet, 
peace-loving  scholar  is  prone  to  regard  the  teasing  and  horse- 
play of  youth  as  a  profitless  mania  which  a  few  words  of  advice 
should  cure  in  all  save  the  intellectually  or  morally  perverse! 
The  father,  taught  by  school  and  shop  to  value  only  the  products 
of  activities,  thinks  he  will  satisfy  his  little  son  by  nailing  the 
boards,  or  filling  the  pail  with  sand,  or  sailing  the  boat,  for 
him!     The  economist  has  counted  on  a  man  possessed  by  a 


296  THE    ORIGINAL    NATURE    OF    MAN 

single-hearted  craving  for  food  and  shelter,  and  avoidance  of 
pain  and  productive  labor!  Some  moralists  have  discussed 
man  as  if  he  were  a  monomaniac  seeking  only  sensory  pleasures 
and  avoiding  only  sensory  pains !  Many  metaphysicians  have 
seemed  to  suppose  that  man's  thinking  was  governed  by  a  burn- 
ing annoyance  at  contradictory  judgments. 

To  free  oneself  from  such  prejudices  and  narrow  inven- 
tories of  man's  original  interests  is  the  first  step  toward  a 
reasonable  use  of  them.  The  second  is  put  the  useful  ones  to 
work  and  guard  against  the  dangerous  ones.  Thus  the  very 
little  child's  satisfactions  at  bringing  things  to  the  mother  and 
at  carrying  through  a  project  to  which  original  nature  impels 
him  are  roots  of  cooperation  and  helpfulness  and  achievement. 
Thus,  the  satisfactions  of  sex  indulgence  or  of  absolute  mastery 
over  other  human  beings  (as  by  position  or  wealth)  are  so 
potent  and  so  disturbing  to  modem  plans  for  man's  welfare 
that  chastity,  equality  and  poverty  should  probably  be  the  rule 
until  the  individual,  by  having  been  taught  to  find  satisfaction 
in  the  welfare  of  others,  the  maintenance  of  an  ideal  self  and 
the  impersonal  pleasures,  has  proved  himself  fit  to  use  his  body, 
position  and  wealth. 

The  third  element  in  rational  use  of  nature's  capital  of 
motives  is  to  exercise  ingenuity  in  attaching  and  detaching  sat- 
isfaction and  discomfort  to  and  from  this  and  that  particular 
situation  or  feature  of  a  situation.  The  genius  at  human  engi- 
neering will  learn  to  apply  these  forces  with  a  skill  like  that 
whereby  the  mechanical  and  chemical  engineers  use  the  forces 
of  gravity  and  atomic  affinities.  The  triumphs  so  possible  are 
of  course  not  for  me  to  illustrate,  but  I  may  note  two  obvious 
principles.  First,  the  satisfyingness  of  a  state  of  affairs  is  not 
an  abstractly,  uniformly  potent  thing,  but  depends  on  the  total 
behavior-series  in  which  the  state  of  affairs  happens.  A  boy 
may  like  to  be  petted  by  his  mother,  but  not  in  public ;  he  may 
like  to  work  with  tools  when  some  special  achievement  has 
been  suggested,  but  not  when  told.  There  are  your  tools ;  play 
with  them.'     The  second  fact  is  that  the  states  of  affairs  which 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  297 

are  constituted  by  the  approval,  scorn,  kindliness  and  anger 
and  the  like  of  other  human  beings  may  fail  of  efficacy  because 
of  even  slight  departures  from  the  typical  original  form  of  the 
behavior  in  question.  Thus  a  parent  or  teacher  who  is  reserved 
and  constrained  may,  though  sincerely  approving,  have  the 
effect  of  indifference;  on  the  other  hand,  a  showy  pretense  at 
kindly  interest  is  likely  to  be  responded  to  as  the  meddling 
which  it  really  is.  Children  must  not  be  expected  to  be  mind- 
readers,  nor  on  the  other  hand  should  any  one  hope  that  the 
ostensible  meaning  of  words  will  substitute  for  the  subtle  char- 
acteristics of  bodily  attitude,  facial  expression,  and  quality  of 
voice. 

Besides  putting  us  in  possession  of  control  over  the  springs 
of  conduct,  recognition  of  the  facts  about  satisfiers  and  annoy- 
ers  serves  to  correct  false  views  of  the  psychology  and  pedagogy 
of  interest,  especially  the  view  that  interest  is  nothing  but  the 
attitude  of  attentiveness  and  that  the  educational  problem  of 
interest  is  nothing  more  than  that  of  getting  attention  to  the 
right  objects. 

This  view  is  well  illustrated  by  the  following  quotation 
from  Professor  Calkins'  Introduction  to  Psychology,  compris- 
ing all  that  she  thinks  it  Worth  while  to  say  about  interest  in 
the  course  of  the  five  hundred  pages. 

"The  term  attention  is  a  psychological  pseudonym  of  the 
expression  'interest.'  To  be  attended  to  means  precisely  to  be 
interesting.  .  .  .  Things  which  are  naturally  uninteresting, 
such  as  dull  books  or  difficult  problems,  may,  it  is  true,  be 
attended  to,  but  they  grow  interesting  in  the  process :  for  being 
interested  and  attending  are  one  and  the  same  experience,  .  .  . 
In  a  strict  and  limited  sense,  the  attended  to  or  interesting  is  a 
relational  experience.  .  .  .  'Clear'  and  'vivid'  are  other  syno- 
nyms of  attended  to  and  interesting  in  this  narrow  use  of  the 
terms.  .  .  .  Narrowness  of  the  fact  attended  to  is  evidently  a 
constant  characteristic.  .  ,  .  The  term  'attention'  is  often  used 
in  a  very  broad  way,  to  cover  not  only  the  attention  feeling, 
clearness,  but  the  characteristic  results  and  accompaniments  of 
the  feeling.  .  .  .  From  the  practical  point  of  view  attention 
certainly  is  significant,  not  for  what  it  is  in  itself,  but  because 


298  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

it  is  followed  by  memory  and  thought."  ['01,  pp.  137-146, 
passim]  The  original  interests  are  stated  by  this  author  to  be : 
first,  in  'the  unusual'  (including  the  intense),  and  second  in 
'the  instinctively  interesting,'  the  latter  being  left  undescribed 
save  by  the  case  (which  seems  better  fitted  to  illustrate  acquisi- 
tion than  instinct)  of  Miss  Calkins'  interest  in  "the  waves  that 
are  breaking  on  the  shore"  and  her  neighbors'  interests  in 
"tranquilly  playing  cards  or  making  Battenberg  lace."     ['01, 

P-  139  f-] 

We  must,  it  is  true,  allow  psychologists  the  right  so  to 
restrict  the  meaning  of  the  word  interest  if  they  choose;  but, 
if  they  do  so,  they  should  give  space  and  a  name  to  the  far 
more  important  fact,  which  interest  has  meant  in  common- 
sense  usage,  that  certain  sorts  of  behavior  satisfy  man — ^that 
is,  are  welcomed,  and  continued,  and  upon  proper  occasion 
readily  repeated  by  him.  The  statement  'John  is  interested  in 
music;  James  is  not,'  means  more  than  that  John  listens  atten- 
tively to  music  and  is  attentive  to  various  requests  to  study 
music,  and  attends  to  the  music  he  is  told  to  study,  while  James 
does  the  opposite.  It  means,  in  addition  and  primarily,  that 
John  is  satisfied  by  melodies  and  harmonies  heard,  scores 
seen,  exercises  practiced,  musical  ability  attained  and  the  like, 
as  James  is  not;  and  that  from  identical  external  stimuli 
equally  attended  to,  diflFerent  results  accrue  in  the  two  boys. 
The  difference  in  attention  is  only  one  of  many  symptoms  and 
results  of  this  difference  in  satisfyingness.  Miss  Calkins' 
superior  interest  in  the  forces,  moods  and  beauties  of  nature  is, 
I  venture  to  instruct  her,  more  than  her  tendency  to  attend  to 
natural  objects  and  leave  unnoticed  the  needles  and  threads, 
aces  and  ten-spots.  It  is  a  tendency  to  be  satisfied  by  states  of 
affairs  which  bore  her  neighbors.  The  instructive  element  of 
her  interest  in  the  waves  that  are  breaking  on  the  shore  is  the 
moving  force  which  makes  her  attend  now  and  in  the  future, 
and  also  in  many  other  ways  respond  to  them.  This  moving 
force  is  the  readiness  of  certain  neurones  to  act,  manifested  as 
the  satisfyingness  of  certain  states  of  affairs  to  her. 

The  educational   doctrine  of  interest,   then,   should  take 


THE   USE  OF  ORIGINAL  TENDENCIES  299 

account  of  all  the  consequences  of  the  satisfiers  and  annoyers. 
Their  tendency  to  strengthen  and  weaken  permanently  the  con- 
nections which  they  accompany  or  closely  follow,  whatever 
these  be,  is  indeed  much  more  important  than  their  tendency  to 
predispose  toward  attention  to,  and  neglect  of,  certain  objects 
and  events.  The  latter  is  simply  one  special  case  of  the  former. 
What  a  man  attends  to  is  a  matter  of  instincts  and  habits,  like 
any  other  instincts  and  habits,  modified  like  them  in  accord 
with  the  law  of  effect.  The  tendencies  to  be  satisfied  and 
annoyed  which  determine  the  lines  of  force  of  the  law  of  effect, 
are  prime  determiners  of  man's  intellect  and  character.  Com- 
mon sense  calls  them  his  'wants'  or  'interests,'  and  they  may 
well  retain  that  name. 

Since  the  original  satisfiers  and  annoyers  for  man  as  a 
species  are  the  fundamental  moving  force  in  the  common  fea- 
tures of  man's  learning,  the  individual  differences  in  their 
strength  which  characterize  men  singly  may  be  expected  to  be 
fundamental  causes  of  the  differences  among  individuals  in 
intellect,  character  and  achievement.  What  little  is  known 
concerning  individual  differences  and  their  causes  justifies  this 
expectation.  Thus  the  original  satisfyingness  of  manipulation 
of  things  and  of  'experimentation'  with  them — that  is,  doing 
something  to  things  and  having  them  do  something  as  a  result 
— is  relatively  stronger  in  boy-  than  in  girl-babies,  whereas  the 
original  satisfyingness  of  gregariousness,  attentiveness  to  hu- 
man faces  and  voices,  being  approved  and  affectionately  treated, 
and  the  like,  is  relatively  stronger  in  girl-  than  in  boy-babies.* 

This  difference  between  the  sexes  seems  to  play  a  large 
part  in  determining  even  so  remote  and  artificial  a  matter  as 
the  choices  of  high  school  and  college  electives,  boys  showmg 
a  relatively  stronger  interest  in  the  physical  sciences  and  girls 

*I  use  the  words  'relatively  stronger'  here  with  the  meaning  that  (A 
in  boys) — (B  in  boys)  is  greater  than  (A  in  girls)  —  (B  in  girls),  where 
A=the  strength  of  the  manipulation-experimentation  interest  and  B=thc 
strength  of  the  gregarious-human  emotional  expression-affection  interest. 
It  is  probably  also  true  that  (A  in  boys)>(A  in  girls  and  that  (B  in 
t>oys)<(B  in  girls),  though  that  is  not  rtquired  for  our  argument. 


300  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF    MAN 

in  literature  and  psychology.  The  same  difference  TJuithin 
either  sex  seems  also  to  be  an  effective  determiner  of  achieve- 
ment, though  we  have  here  no  data  earlier  than  the  elementary- 
school  age.  By  that  age,  and  probably  in  infancy  as  well,  the 
kind  of  man  who  is  to  become  an  eminent  mechanical  engineer 
shows  notably  differences  from  the  man  who  is  to  become  an 
eminent  lawyer,  in  respect  to  the  relative  strength  of  these  two 
satisfaction  groups  which  we  may  call  for  short,  the  'thing- 
action'  and  the  'human-feeling'  interests.  Kent  ['03,  p.  62] 
found  the  order  of  certain  interests  at  the  elementary-school 
period  reported  by  two  such  groups  to  be  as  follows : 

Boyhood  Interests  of  Engineers  and  Lawyers 
Engineers  Lawyers 

I.      2.      3.      4.      5.      I       I.      2.      3.      4.      5. 
Science 
Arithmetic 
Geography 
History 
Literature 

The  numbers  i,  2,  3,  4,  5,  at  the  top  refer  to  the  order  of  interest.  The 
numbers  beneath  give  the  number  of  men  reporting  each  subject  as  of  the 
given  degree  of  interest.  Thus,  of  82  engineers  who  mentioned  science, 
36  put  it  as  the  most  interesting  study  of  the  five  during  their  boyhood; 
while  not  one  puts  it  as  the  least  interesting. 

Another  instructive  illustration  of  the  significance  of  indi- 
vidual differences  in  being  satisfied  and  annoyed  is  found  in 
the  general  torpor  and  lack  of  zeal  of  the  feeble-minded  with 
respect  to  mental  play,  even  when  it  is  adapted  to  their  degree 
of  capacity.  They  do  not  learn,  partly  because  they  are  not 
satisfied  by  new  sensations,  by  doing  something  to  have  some- 
thing happen,  and  by  mental  life  for  its  own  sake;  and  are  not 
annoyed  by  monotony,  vacuity,  and  failure.  The  apathetic 
ones  often  do  not  even  care  enough  to  play,  while  the  active 
ones  play  at  stereotyped  animal-like  occupations  in  which  a 
gifted  child  could  not  engage  without  enlivening  them  by  some 
intellectual  artifice.     It  is  not  essentially  false  to  say  that  the 


36 

37 

8 

I 

0 

0 

0 

II 

33 

33 

49 

19 

II 

6 

6 

1  22 

II 

22 

0 

44 

10 

14 

28 

17 

10 

\      0 

II 

44 

33 

0 

4 

8 

24 

36 

14 

56 

II 

II 

II 

0 

I 

6 

7 

15 

49 

II 

56 

0 

II 

0 

THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  3OI 

stupid  person  wants  to  be  stupid.  A  convenient  means  of 
estimating-  the  significance  of  satisfaction  in  mental  activity  for 
achievement  is  to  read  Dr.  Kuhlmann's  account  of  his  ex- 
periences in  teaching  some  feeble-minded  boys  to  play  dominoes. 
['04,  pp.  394-402] 

I  quote  typical  statements : — "A,  eleven  years  ...  a  mid- 
dle-grade imbecile.  ...  In  general  he  showed  little  interest 
in  the  game,  none  apparently,  except  in  the  mere  stringing  of 
blocks  into  a  line,  possibly  some  in  matching,  and  most  in  his 
recognition  of  his  having  won."  (This,  here  and  later,  was 
probably  due  to  the  notice  and  approving  looks  thereby  got). 
.  .  .  "B  .  .  .  fourteen  years  nine  months  .  .  .  above  A  in 
general  ability  .  .  .  but  would  come  under  the  imbecile  grade. 
.  .  .  His  interest  seemed,  too,  to  be  in  stringing  out  a  line  of 
blocks,  perhaps  some  in  matching,  but  most  in  winning.  .  .  . 
D  .  .  .  ten  years  and  four  months  .  .  .  above  the  imbecile 
grade  .  .  .  had  no  difficulty  in  learning  to  play  the  domino 
game.  .  .  .  He  showed  considerable  interest  in  winning.  .  .  . 
E  .  .  .  twelve  years  ten  months  old  .  .  .  above  the  imbecile 
grade.  In  learning  the  domino  game  he  showed  no  appreciable 
difference  .  .  .  from  B.  .  .  .  F,  eight  years  seven  months  old 
...  of  the  active  type.  ...  To  go  through  the  regular  pro- 
cedure of  a  domino  game  proved  to  be  beyond  F's  attainments ; 
not  perhaps  because  he  did  not  understand  the  game,  for  occa- 
sional evidence  showed  that  he  probably  understood  as  well  as 
any  of  the  other  cases.  ...  As  a  rule  he  showed  no  interest 
in  either  the  procedure  or  in  winning,  yet  a  few  times  he  ap- 
plauded loudly  when  he  won  and  got  angry  when  his  opponent 
won  several  times  in  succession." 

THE  TRUE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  PLASTICITY 

Modern  educational  philosophers  have  emphasized  the  value 
of  what  they  call  the  'plasticity*  of  man  in  contrast  to  the 
stereotyped  and  rigid  behavior  of  the  lower  animals.  That 
the  possibilities  of  education  for  him  are  so  far  beyond  those 
for  the  other  animals,  is  due,  they  say,  to  his  being  'plastic' 
for  so  much  longer  a  time,  in  so  much  larger  a  proportion  of 
his  behavior,  and  so  much  more  fully  in  each  feature  of  it. 

This  doctrine  is  harmless,  though  also  helpless,  so  long  as  it 


302  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

is  taken  to  mean  only  the  obvious  facts  that  man  does  change 
at  a  rapid  rate  in  each  of  many  traits,  and  continues  to  change 
rapidly  for  many  years.  But  one  of  two  very  misleading 
meanings  is  likely  to  be  in  the  theory  in  the  minds  of  those 
holding  it,  or  at  least  to  result  in  the  minds  of  readers  of  their 
expositions  of  it.  Either  the  ^plasticity'  of  man  is  thought  of 
vaguely  as  a  power  possessed  by  him  whereby  he  fits  himself 
to  live  and  thrive  in  any  environment,  or  it  is  thought  of  as  the 
absence  of  tendencies  to  respond  to  particular  situations,  each 
in  a  definite  way.  Plasticity  in  the  first  sense  of  a  magic 
potency  to  get  along  with  anything  would  doubtless  be  valuable 
to  have,  but  does  not  exist.  In  the  second  sense  of  the  mere 
absence  of  definite  tendencies  to  response  it  would  not  produce 
the  superior  educability  of  man  or  anything  else  of  value.* 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  standard  expressions  of  the 
doctrine  of  plasticity  lend  support  to  these  two  errors.  John 
Fiske  says,  in  an  often  quoted  passage : 

"But  this  steady  increase  in  intelligence,  as  our  forefathers 
began  to  become  human,  carried  with  it  a  steady  prolongation 
of  infancy.  As  mental  life  became  more  complex  and  various, 
as  the  things  to  be  learned  kept  ever  multiplying,  less  and  less 
could  be  done  before  birth,  more  and  more  must  be  left  to  be 
done  in  the  earlier  years  of  life.  So  instead  of  being  born  with 
a  few  capacities  thoroughly  organized,  man  came  at  last  to  be 
born  with  the  germs  of  many  complex  capacities  which  were 
reserved  to  be  unfolded  and  enhanced  or  checked  and  stifled 
by  the  incidents  of  personal  experience  in  each  individual.  In 
this  simple  yet  wonderful  way  there  has  been  provided  for  man 
a  long  period  during  which  his  mind  is  plastic  and  malleable, 
and  the  length  of  the  period  has  increased  with  civilization  until 

*There  is  also  the  argument  from  adaptation  that  if  the  young  are 
helpless,  the  parents  must  needs  be  specially  sagacious  in  order  to  keep 
them  alive.  Such  is  apparently  Chamberlain's  notion  when  he  writes  that 
"A  comparatively  witless  infancy  must  augur  the  high  intellectual  achieve- 
ments of  the  men  and  women  of  the  race."  ['oo,  p.  3.]  This  is,  of 
course,  only  hypothetical  in  any  case,  and  is  proved  false  by  the  case  of 
the  kangaroo  and  opossum.  Helplessness  in  the  young  can  be  prevented 
from  causing  their  elimination  by  many  other  means  than  great  intel- 
ligence in  their  parents. 


THE   USE  OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  303 

it  now  covers  nearly  one  third  of  our  lives.  It  is  not  that  our 
inherited  tendencies  and  adaptations  are  not  still  the  main  thing. 
It  is  only  that  we  have  at  last  acquired  great  power  to  modify 
them  by  training  so  that  progress  may  go  on  with  ever  increas- 
ing sureness  and  rapidity."     ['83,  p.  315  f.] 

The  third  sentence  has,  and  perhaps  fairly,  been  interpreted 
in  just  these  objectionable  ways. 

James,  writing  of  the  genesis  of  human  reasoning,  contrasts 
man  with  the  lower  animals  as  follows : — 

"In  them  [the  lower  animals]  fixed  habit  is  the  essential 
and  characteristic  law  of  nervous  action.  The  brain  grows  to 
the  exact  modes  in  which  it  has  been  exercised,  and  the  inheri- 
tance of  these  modes  would  have  in  it  nothing  surprising.  But 
in  man  the  negation  of  all  fixed  modes  is  the  essential  char- 
acteristic. He  owes  his  whole  preeminence  as  a  reasoner,  his 
whole  human  quality  of  intellect,  we  may  say,  to  the  facility 
with  which  a  given  mode  of  thought  in  him  may  suddenly  be 
broken  up  into  elements  which  recombine  anew.  Only  at  the 
price  of  inheriting  no  settled  instinctive  tendencies  is  he  able  to 
settle  every  novel  case  by  the  fresh  discovery  by  his  reason  of 
novel  principles.     ['93,  vol.  2,  p.  367  f.] 

This,  especially  the  last  sentence,  is  an  unfortunate  state- 
ment. James'  contrary  general  doctrine  that  man  has  more 
instincts  than  any  of  the  lower  animals  and  that  their  elaborate 
interactions  are  the  stimuli  to  his  intelligent  procedure  is  to  be 
preferred  to  it.  Here  he  apparently  accepts  the  notion  of  in- 
stincts— as  hard  and  fast  tendencies,  irrevocably  'fixed'  and 
'settled'  in  'exact  modes' — which  he  later  so  effectively  demol- 
ishes. A  mind  given  up  to  such  might  well  be  incapable  of 
wide  and  rapid  learning.  But  a  mind  equipped  with  many 
instincts  such  as  nature  really  shows  and  such  as  James  himself 
describes,  may  be  all  the  more  capable  of  wide  and  rapid  learn- 
ing. The  facility  with  which  a  given  mode  of  behavior  "may 
suddenly  be  broken  up  into  elements"  is  indeed  in  part  depen- 
dent upon  the  number  of  the  original  behavior-series  into  which 
it  enters.     This,  also,  James  elsewhere  shows. 


304  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE    OF    MAN 

Henderson  makes  still  clearer  the  view  of  plasticity  which 
I  am  questioning.     He  says : 

"Given  such  a  system  [the  connection  system  of  the  human 
brain]  and  the  readiness  of  learning  depends  on  the  absence 
therein  of  preferential  associations  between  stimuli  and  re- 
sponses. Wherever  owing  to  heredity  or  training  such  prefer- 
ential associations  exist,  there  the  power  to  utilize  other  than 
the  associated  responses  is  in  part  interfered  with,  and  rendered 
slow  or  difficult.  Heredity,  therefore,  endows  one  with  the 
capacity  to  learn  by  the  gift  of  a  central  nervous  system  with 
which  all  parts  of  the  sensory  and  motor  apparatus  are  closely 
connected,  and  in  which  the  preferential  associations  tend  to  be 
few  or  feeble  and  the  amount  of  diffusion  in  nervous  currents 
correspondingly  great."     ['10,  p.  90  f.] 

Attributing  man's  greater  ease  and  wider  range  and  longer 
maintenance  of  modifiability  or  adaptability  to  an  undefined 
'plasticity'  is  simply  one  more  case  of  leaving  a  tendency  unde- 
scribed  save  by  its  results,  and  so  encouraging  the  imputation 
of  miraculous  powers  to  it.  What  both  insight  into  and  con- 
trol over  human  nature  require  is  a  statement  of  just  what 
original  connections — or  what  features  of  them — ^man  has  that 
the  lower  animals  lack,  or  lacks  that  the  lower  animals  have, 
which  make  him  learn  so  much  more  than  they  do. 

The  notion  that  a  mere  lack  of  definite  connections  between 
situations  and  responses  gives  man  his  advantage  in  a  rapidly 
changing  and  complex  world  seems  plausible,  but  is  thoroughly 
unsound.  Its  argument  runs  as  follows: — By  having  no  one 
response  Ri  connected  with  a  situation  Si  man  is  able  to  make 
in  succession  many  responses  Ri,  R2,  R3,  R4,  R5,  etc.  In  a 
changing  environment,  proffering  to  each  generation  new  situa- 
tions and  requiring  from  each  generation  different  responses 
from  those  which  sufficed  its  ancestors,  a  hundred  responses, 
each  connected  to  nothing  in  particular,  are  thus  better  than 
hundreds  each  with  its  preferential  attachment  to  some  one 
situation.  It  is  unsound  because,  first,  not  having  Ri  con- 
nected with  Si  gives  no  increased  likelihood  of  responding 
thereto  by  R2,  R3,  R4,  etc.     Not  sneezing  when  one's  nose  is 


THE  USE  OF  ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  305 

irritated  would,  per  se,  add  not  a  jot  or  tittle  to  the  probability 
that  one  will  blow  his  nose  or  go  to  a  physician.  If  the  con- 
nection with  sneezing  does  prevent  those  other  connections, 
it  is  by  removing  the  irritation;  if  the  annoying  situation  per- 
sists after  the  sneezing  response,  it  is  just  as  likely  to  produce 
diffusion  into  other  responses  if  there  has  been,  as  if  there  has 
not  been,  a  definite  prior  response.  Further,  that  a  hundred 
responses  are  each  connected  with  nothing  in  particular  does  not 
mean  that  each  is  connected  to  everything  in  general.  It  could 
mean  only  that  they  were  not  connected  with  anything  at  all,  and 
so  could  not  be  made  at  all.  Any  connection  has  to  be  with  some- 
thing in  particular.  Multiple  response  to  a  single  situation 
occurs,  not  because  no  response  is  connected  with  it,  but  because 
many  are,  each  according  to  some  variation  in  it,  such  as  its 
continuance  after  the  preferred  response  to  it  has  been  made. 
Nor  would  there  be  any  advantage  in  having  a  set  of  responses 
to  one  situation-group  made  in  a  random  order  rather  than  in 
always  beginning  with  some  one  of  them. 

The  real  facts  for  which  plasticity  is  a  possible  name  are 
not  negative  but  positive — not  the  poverty  of  man's  unlearned 
connections,  but  their  richness.  Notable  are  the  connections 
described  under  manipulation,  vocalization,  visual  exploration, 
curiosity,  mental  control,  the  responses  to  approval  and  disap- 
proval, the  satisfyingness  of  forming  and  using  secondary  con- 
nections, and,  of  course,  the  strengthening  of  connections  by 
the  satisfyingness  and  annoyingness  of  their  accompaniments 
and  sequents.  It  is  because  man  has  these  tendencies  to  an 
extent  and  degree  unknown  in  the  lower  animals  that  he  learns 
so  much  more,  and  so  much  more  quickly,  than  they. 

The  instincts  of  theirs  which  he  lacks  and  the  'imperfection* 
in  him  of  instincts  which  are  'perfect'  in  them  are  not  causes 
of  his  superiority.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  instincts  of  his 
which  they  lack  and  the  'imperfection'  in  them  of  instincts  which 
are  more  nearly  'perfect'  in  him  which  cause  their  inferiority. 


306  THE   ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

WHICH    INSTINCTS   ARE   OF    MOST    WORTH? 

The  more  specific  tendencies — such  as  to  walk,  run  or  climb, 
to  go  to  sleep  under  cover,  to  pursue,  catch  and  dismember 
small  objects,  to  fear  loud  noises  and  the  dark,  to  attack  him 
who  takes  away  one's  possessions,  and  to  show  off  before  the 
opposite  sex — may  be  put  in  one  group  and  compared  with  the 
more  general  tendencies — such  as  curiosity,  manipulation, 
vocalization,  being  satisfied  by  mental  control  or  'being  a  cause,' 
and  the  instincts  of  multiform  physical  and  mental  activity. 

The  more  'emotional'  tendencies — such  as  to  be  loving, 
frightened,  angry,  amorous,  disgusted  or  elated — may  be  com- 
pared with  the  more  'intellectual'  tendencies — such  as  curiosity, 
visual  exploration  or  multiform  mental  activity. 

The  more  ancient  tendencies,  which  hark  back  to  prehuman 
times — such  as  climbing,  rivalry  for  food  and  mates,  fear  of 
sudden  loud  noises — ^may  be  compared  with  the  tendencies  that 
have  been  born  lately,  since  man  became  differentiated  from 
the  other  primates. 

In  the  way  in  which  the  question  of  worth  in  human  struc- 
ture or  behavior  is  usually  interpreted,  there  is  roughly  a 
balance — ^and  a  large  one — in  favor  of  the  more  general,  more 
intellectual  and  more  modern  instincts.  If  we  list  the  features 
of  life  which  are  the  greatest  means  of  human  welfare — of 
health,  industry,  knowledge  and  justice — ^and  note  their  more 
obvious  sources  in  original  nature,  we  are  led  to  the  instincts  of 
curiosity,  manipulation,  mental  control  and  multiform  mental 
activity,  in  which  reason  begins  to  experiment  freely  with  the 
facts  of  nature.  In  a  world  in  which  man  makes  his  foods  and 
drugs  and  measures  their  specific  virtues  to  a  calorie,  the  orig- 
inal food  preferences  and  avoidances  seem,  and  are,  rather 
trivial  means  of  protection.  Where  there  are  so  many  interest- 
ing occupations  that  serve  man's  good,  where  the  killing  of  one 
fox  costs  the  food  of  a  man  for  a  week,  the  interest  in  general 
manipulative  play  far  outranks  the  hunting  instinct.  There  is 
no  longer  any  wisdom  in  submitting  to  big  and  domineering 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  3^7 

men,  loving  pink-cheeked  maidens,  and  hating  those  who  med- 
dle with  us,  that  can  compare  with  the  wisdom  of  impersonal 
inquiry  into  the  facts  of  life  and  their  effect  on  human  welfare. 

It  is  of  course  true,  with  behavior  as  with  structure,  that 
the  question  of  what  is  worth  most  requires  qualification.  That 
a  brain,  in  the  common  interpretation  of  the  question,  is  worth 
more  for  human  welfare  than  a  liver,  does  not  deny  that  man's 
body  would  be  equally  valueless  whether  his  brain  or  his  liver 
were  extirpated.  Similarly  to  assert  that  general  manipulation 
is  worth  more  than  breathing  or  swallowing  does  not  deny  that 
the  former  would  be  worth  nothing  to  a  man  dead  because 
lacking  the  instincts  to  breathe  and  swallow.  The  meaning 
attached  to  'worth'  in  the  comparison  of  indispensables  is  of 
course  complex,  and  provocative  of  casuistic  and  evasive  argu- 
mentation. I  have  trusted,  and  shall  trust,  the  reader  to  keep 
in  mind  the  qualifications  and  conditions  without  which  such 
comparisons  are  meaningless. 

Keeping  them  in  mind,  the  law  of  effect — that  is,  the  in- 
stinct of  the  neurones  to  preserve  those  connections  by  which 
neurones  'ready  to  conduct'  are  stimulated  and  to  lose  those  by 
which  neurones  'unready  to  conduct'  are  stimulated — and  the 
instincts  of  multiform  physical  and  mental  activity,  including 
curiosity,  visual  exploration,  manipulation,  vocalization  and 
satisfaction  at  mental  control  or  'doing  something  and  having 
something  happen  thereby,'  are  on  a  plane  of  worth  far  above 
the  rest  of  man's  equipment.  Of  these,  the  tendencies  to  make 
and  enjoy  making  secondary  connections  beyond  the  direct 
bonds  between  sensed  situation  and  immediate  motor  response 
to  it  are,  by  the  same  token,  of  the  "most  worth.  Those  con- 
nections in  which  the  sensory  situation  is  replaced  by  an  ab- 
stract plan,  and  the  immediate  muscular  response  by  a  con- 
templated action,  'tried  out'  in  thought  only,  will,  in  the  long 
run,  do  most  for  satisfying  human  wants.  For,  first,  each  can 
do  the  work  of  thousands  of  gross  concrete  behavior-series, 
providing  for  situations  before  they  are  met,  for  elements  of 
situations  never  encountered  by  themselves,  and  for  groups  of 


308  THE  ORIGINAL   NATURE   OF   MAN 

situations  whose  essential  similarity  the  more  animal-like  con- 
nections could  never  reveal.  In  the  second  place,  these  ten- 
dencies to  secondary,  or  so-called  'higher,'  connections  may  rise 
free  from  the  appetites  of  the  single  creature  who  exercises 
them  and  deal  with  the  world  in  the  interest  of  all  men.  Work 
and  play  with  'ideas'  of  apples,  blows,  headaches,  friendship, 
war,  marriage,  child-birth  and  family  can  be  impersonal  and 
ideal  to  an  extent  and  a  degree  that  would  never  be  attained 
by  direct  responses  to  the  concrete  situations  themselves.  So, 
by  his  peculiar  tendencies  to  go  beyond  these  and  to  enjoy 
mental  activity  in  general,  man  is  becoming  able  to  guide  the 
melee  of  personal  loves,  hates,  jealousies,  rivalries,  seizings, 
holdings,  fightings,  masterings  and  submittings  by  that  im- 
partial judgment  of  their  effects  which  makes  truth  and  that 
impartial  judgment  of  their  worth  which  makes  justice. 

Two  different  decisions  as  to  the  relative  worth  of  the 
elements  of  man's  original  nature  should  be  noted,  of  which 
one  flatly  opposes  the  answer  given  here,  while  the  other  gives 
our  answer,  but  for  a  very  different  reason. 

The  former  asserts  that  the  more  emotional  instincts  should 
outrank  the  more  intellectual  ones;  and  the  older,  the  more 
recent.  This  view  is  cherished  in  one  or  another  modified  form 
by  very  many  reactionaries  who  distrust  the  rationalization  or 
intellectual  control  of  human  affairs;  and  by  a  few  men  of 
genius  who  believe  that  such  control  must,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  be  superficial  and  unsafe.  Of  the  latter  Stanley  Hall 
has  given  the  most  vigorous  exposition  of  the  view  that  man's 
loves,  fears,  hates,  disgusts  and  other  direct  and  vehement 
behavior  toward  things  and  men  should  be  the  primary  objects 
of  education.  If  they  are  well  managed,  he  thinks,  the  instincts 
productive  of  the  arts  and  sciences  can  safely  be  left  to  them- 
selves, while,  if  man  goes  astray^  in  respect  to  any  of  these 
primitive  appetites,  his  whole  makeup  may  twist  like  a  bad  tool 
or  rot  like  a  bad  apple. 

Such  a  view  is  useful  as  a  warning  against  the  neglect  of 
the  less  intellectual  instincts,  and  against  mistaken  confidence 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  309 

that  superficial  habits  of  thought  will  work  back  transformingly 
upon  the  deeper  strata  of  feeling  and  action,  but  it  does  not 
weaken  the  force  of  the  facts  in  favor  of  the  importance,  in  life 
and  in  education,  of  the  instincts  which  lead  to  thought,  art, 
and  science.  It  is  precisely  by  the  products  of  the  intellectual 
instincts  that  the  more  vehement  feeling  instincts  can  be  guided 
aright.  *To  love  aright,'  says  Hall,  'is  the  beginning  of  wis- 
dom' ;  but  to  learn  to  love  aright  is  possible  only  by  ideal  con- 
trols. What  will  attract  sexually  is  in  any  case  a  result  in 
large  measure  of  circumstances;  the  question  is  whether  there 
shall  be,  among  these  circumstances,  ideals  of  health,  mental 
and  moral  vigor  and  fitness  for  parenthood,  preformed  by  the 
right  direction  of  the  intellectual  instincts.  Finding  that  the 
original  maternal  instinct  is  important  and  needs  to  be  cherished 
and  redirected  in  the  midst  of  forces  that  threaten  to  prevent 
its  exercise.  Hall  himself  turns  at  once  for  aid  to  the  instincts 
of  general  mental  activity,  trying  to  direct  them  to  the  study 
of  children,  of  the  value  of  mothering  behavior  to  the  mother 
as  well  as  the  child,  and  the  like.  He  does  not  in  practice  be- 
lieve that  either  stupidity  or  emotionahty  makes  a  good  mother. 

The  danger  of  over-dignifying  the  early  and  emotional  in- 
stincts is,  first,  that  of  encouraging  the  general  laissez-faire  of 
the  'nature  is  right'  doctrine,  and,  in  the  second  place,  of 
laboriously  trying  to  make  much  out  of  tendencies  which  have 
httle  in  them  for  education  in  the  world  of  today.  We  should, 
of  course,  make  as  much  as  we  can  out  of  everything  in  man's 
equipment ;  but  we  had  best  realize  once  for  all  that  pouncing 
upon  and  wrestling,  playing  in  cave-hke  places,  hunting  birds' 
eggs,  returning  a  blow,  fearing  thunder,  pitying  men  with 
sores,  and  the  like  are  triviaHties  for  education  and  life  com- 
pared with  instinctive  manipulation  of  objects  in  general  and 
delight  in  thought  for  thought's  sake. 

Such  an  attack  upon  the  intellectual  instincts  as  Stanley 
Hall's  is,  to  my  mind,  less  objectionable  than  the  defense  of 
pure  thought  with  a  capital  T  by  absolutist  philosophers,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  above  nature  in  its  origin,  and  apart  from 


310  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

ordinary  human  wants  in  its  functions.  If  the  intellect's  only 
merit  consisted  in  transcending  nature — in  serving  the  interests 
of  some  super-human  truth — in  being  above  coming  and  go- 
ing, getting  and  having,  loving  and  hating,  and  other  concrete 
appearances  of  man's  impulsive  struggle  for  life  and  satisfac- 
tion— ^we  might  well  prefer  to  trust  to  the  direct  motor  responses 
of  men  to  work  out  human  salvation  by  trial,  error,  and  chance 
success.  Intellect  is  not  dignified  by  denying  its  natural  origin 
or  by  removing  it  beyond  usefulness  to  the  crudest  and  trivialest 
of  the  wants  of  living  men.  But  the  worth  or  worthlessness 
of  such  a  monstrosity  need  not  be  argued ;  for  it  nowhere  exists. 
Intellect  is  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood  with  all  the  instincts,  a 
brother  whose  superiority  lies  in  his  power  to  appreciate,  har- 
monize, use  and  save  them  all. 

Its  ideals  are  kith  and  kin  of  man's  original  hungers  and 
thirsts  and  cravings.  "What  are  ideals  about  ?"  asks  Santayana 
with  customary  insight,  "what  do  they  idealize  except  natural 
existence  and  natural  passions?  That  would  be  a  miserable 
and  superfluous  ideal  indeed  that  was  nobody's  ideal  of  nothing. 
The  pertinence  of  ideals  binds  them  to  nature,  and  it  is  only 
the  worst  and  flimsiest  ideals,  the  ideals  of  a  sick  soul,  that 
elude  nature's  limits,  and  belie  her  potentialities.  Ideals  are 
forerunners  or  heralds  of  nature's  successes,  not  always  fol- 
lowed, indeed,  by  their  fulfilment,  for  nature  is  but  nature  and 
has  to  feel  her  way;  but  they  are  an  earnest,  at  least,  of  an 
achieved  organization,  an  incipient  accomplishment,  that  tends 
to  maintain  and  root  itself  in  the  world."     ['05,  vol.  i,  p.  282] 

ORIGINAL  NATURE  THE  ULTIMATE  SOURCE  OF  ALL  VALUES 

I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  make  it  clear  that  the  instinc- 
tive tendencies  of  man  must  often  be  supplemented,  redirected 
and  even  reversed,  and  that,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  words, 
original  nature  is  imperfect  and  untrustworthy.  But  in  a  cer- 
tain important  sense  nature  is  right. 

There  is  a  warfare  of  man's  ideals  with  his  original  tend- 


THE   USE   OF   ORIGINAL   TENDENCIES  $il 

encies,  but  his  ideals  themselves  came  at  some  time  from  original 
yearnings  in  some  man.  Learning  has  to  remake  unlearned 
tendencies  for  the  better,  but  the  capacity  to  learn,  too,  is  a  part 
of  his  nature.  Intelligence  and  reason  are  fit  rulers  of  man's 
instincts  just  because  they  are  of  the  same  flesh  and  blood. 
They  are  not  foreign  conquerors,  imposing  a  law  that  is  better, 
because  it  comes  down  from  above.  They  are  sons  of  the  soil, 
as  indigenous  as  hunger  and  thirst,  chosen  to  rule  because  their 
laws  mean  the  best  harmony  of  all  the  instincts.  The  native 
impulses  and  cravings  of  man  have  to  be  tamed  and  enlightened 
by  the  customs,  arts  and  sciences  of  civilized  life,  but  every 
item  of  these  arts  and  sciences  was  first  created  by  forces  within 
man's  own  nature.  Instincts  may  be  trusted  to  form  desirable 
habits  only  under  a  strong  social  pressure  whereby  the  wants  of 
one  are  accommodated  to  the  wants  of  all,  but  the  most  elab- 
orate and  artificial  moral  training  which  a  social  group  pre- 
scribes is  still  ultimately  an  expression  of  man's  nature.  The 
springs  of  ideals  and  of  work  in  their  service  are  surely  not 
in  the  environment  of  rocks,  rivers,  animals  and  plants.  Man's 
nature  is  right  in  at  least  the  sense  that  it,  not  the  world  out- 
side of  it,  is  the  source  of  whatever  goods  man  has  learned  to 
esteem. 

The  impersonal  wants,  the  cravings  for  truth,  beauty  and 
justice,  the  zeal  for  competence  in  workmanship,  and  the  spirit 
of  good  will  toward  men  which  are  the  highest  objects  of  life 
for  man  seem  far  removed  from  his  original  proclivities.  They 
are  remote  in  the  sense  that  the  forces  in  their  favor  have  to 
work  diligently  and  ingeniously  in  order  to  make  them  even 
partial  aims  for  even  a  minority  of  men.  But,  in  a  deeper 
sense,  they  reside  within  man  himself;  and,  apart  from  super- 
natural aids,  the  forces  in  their  favor  are  simply  all  the  good  in 
all  men. 

The  original  nature  of  man,  as  we  have  seen,  has  its  source 
far  back  of  reason  and  morality  in  the  interplay  of  brute  forces ; 
it  grows  up  as  an  agency  to  keep  men,  and  especially  certain 
neurones  within  men's  bodies,  alive;  it  is  physiologically  de- 


312  THE   ORIGINAL    NATURE   OF    MAN 

termined  by  the  character  of  the  synaptic  bonds  and  degrees  of 
readiness  to  act  of  these  neurones;  parts  of  it  are  again  and 
again  in  rebellion  against  the  higher  life  that  the  acquired  wis- 
dom of  man  prescribes.  But  it  has  evolved  reason  and  morality 
from  brute  force;  amongst  the  neurones  w^hose  life  it  serves 
are  neurones  whose  life  means,  if  a  certain  social  environment 
is  provided,  loving  children,  being  just  to  all  men,  seeking  the 
truth,  and  every  other  activity  that  man  honors;  the  wisdom 
that  criticizes  it  is  its  own  product;  the  higher  life  is  the  choice 
of  its  better  elements:  for  whatever  aberrations  and  degrada- 
tions it  imposes  on  man,  its  own  virtues  are  the  preventive  and 
cure:  and  to  it  will  be  due  whatever  happiness,  power  and 
dignity  man  attains. 

"Human  nature,  then,  has  for  its  core  the  substance  of 
nature  at  large,  and  is  one  of  its  more  complex  formations. 
Its  determination  is  progressive.  It  varies  indefinitely  in  its 
historic  manifestations  and  fades  into  what,  as  a  matter  of 
natural  history,  might  no  longer  be  termed  human.  At  each 
moment  it  has  its  fixed  and  determined  entelechy,  the  ideal  of 
that  being's  life,  based  on  his  instincts,  summed  up  in  his  char- 
acter, brought  to  a  focus  in  his  reflection,  and  shared  by  all  who 
have  attained  or  may  inherit  his  organization.  His  perceptive 
and  reasoning  faculties  are  parts  of  human  nature,  as  embodied 
in  him;  all  objects  of  belief  or  desire,  with  all  standards  of 
justice  and  duty  which  he  can  possibly  acknowledge,  are  trans- 
cripts of  it,  conditioned  by  it,  and  justifiable  only  as  expressions 
of  its  inherent  tendencies."*  These  inherent  tendencies,  too, 
bear  the  impetus  and  means  to  their  own  improvement.  The 
apostles  and  soldiers  of  the  ideal  in  whom  service  for  truth  and 
justice  has  become  the  law  of  life  need  not  despair  of  human 
nature,  nor  pray  for  a  miracle  to  purge  man  of  his  baser  ele- 
ments. They  are  the  sufficient  miracle:  their  lives  are  the 
proof  that  human  nature  itself  can  change  itself  for  the  better 
— that  the  human  species  can  teach  itself  to  think  for  truth 
alone  and  to  act  for  the  good  of  all  men. 
♦Santayana,  Life  of  Reason,  vol.  i,  p.  289  f. 


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INDEX 


320 


INDEX 


Abnormal  psychology,  evidence  from 
as  a  criterion  of  unlearnedness, 
23 

AcHER,  R.  A.,  53,  202,  273 

Acquired  tendencies,  intermixture 
with  original  tendencies,  2  f.,  39 
f. ;  inheritance  of,  230  ff. 

Acquisition,  51  f. 

Activity,  general  mental,  141  fif. ; 
general   physical,   143 

Addition,  effect  of  emulating  an 
absolute  standard  on,  289 

Adornment,  140 

Affection,  81  ff. 

Allin,  a.,  163,  168,  i6g,  208,  27s 

Anatomy  of  original  tendencies,  209 
ff. 

Angell,  J.  R.,  147,  179 

Anger,  76  ff. ;  situations  provoking, 
76;  responses  of,  76  ff.;  value  of, 
283  ff. 

Animal  psychology,  as  a  source  of 
knowledge  of  original  tendencies, 
38 

Animals,   responses  to,  52  f.,  60  f. 

Annoyers,  original,  123  ff. ;  defined, 
123  f. ;  listed,  124;  explicable  only 
by  cerebral  physiology,  125  ff. ; 
in  relation  to  the  laws  of  readi- 
ness and  unreadiness,  127  ff. ; 
function  of,  in  learning,  172  f. ; 
importance  of,  295  f . ;  relation  of 
to  doctrines  of  interest,  297  ff. ; 
relation  of  to  individual  differ- 
ences, 299  ft". 

Anthropology  as  a  source  of  knowl- 
edge of  original  tendencies,  Zl  f- 

Anxiety,    confusion    of    with    fear, 

57  f. 

Appetite,  loss  of  in  pity,  103 

Approval,  responses  to,  89  f. ;  re- 
sponses by,  90  f. 

Archaic  adaptations  in  original  na- 
ture, 280  f. 

Aristotle,  164 

Arms,  position  of,  in  anger,  "jj 

Artistic  instincts,  140 


Attack,  70,  92,  120 

Attention,  46  f. ;  to  human  beings, 

88;  and  interest,  297  f. 
Attention-getting,  88  f. 
Authority,   general   misuse   of,    105 
Avoiding,  54 

Babbling,  114,  135 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  147 

Barker,  L.  F.,  211,  213,  214,  215 

Bashfulness,  94  f.,  96 

Behavior,  defined,  2;  stages  in  the 
explanation  of,  11  ff.  See  for 
specific  forms  of  behavior,  the 
specific  tendencies  in  each  case 

Bergson,  H.,  164,  167,  208 

Bio-genetic  law,  254 

Biographies  of  infants,  27  f. 

Biting,  69,  74,  ^^ 

Boas,  F.,  241 

Bolton,  F.  E.,  203 

Bonds,  original,  6  ff.  See  also  Orig- 
inal tendencies. 

BoRGQUiST,  A.,  208 

Breathing,  in  fear,  59;  in  anger,  76; 
in  laughing,  160  f. 

Browne,  C,  quoted  by  Darwin,  TJ, 
161,  166 

Bryan,  W.  L.,  261 

Bullying,  103  f.,  275  f. 

BuRK,  C.  F.,  54,  262  f. 

BuRK,  F.  L.,  104,  229,  249,  273,  275 
f.,  279  f. 

Calkins,  M.  W.,  180,  297  f. 

Capacities,  defined,  5  f . ;  of  sensi- 
tivity, 44  ff. ;  of  bodily  control, 
47  ff.,  135  ff. ;  productive  of  learn- 
ing, 171  ff. ;  for  permanence  of 
bonds,  193  f.  See  also  Original 
tendencies. 

Catharsis,  275  ff. 

Cave-digging,  202 

Censuses  of  opinions  in  the  study 
of  behavior,  28  ff. 

Chamberlain,  A.  F.,  88,  302 

Chain-reactions,  126,  132  f. 


INDEX 


321 


Children,    observations   of    original 

tendencies  in,  27  f. 
Qasping,  81,  82 
Gassification  of  original  tendencies, 

205  ff. ;  by  their  functions,  205  f . ; 

by  their  situations,  206  f . ;  by  their 

responses,  207  f. ;  by  their  genesis, 

208 
Cleanliness,  139 
Clemens,  S.  L.,  quoted,  71  ff. 
Clepsine,  239 
Climbing,  47 

Clinging,  47  f.,  67,  81,  102 
Clutching,  50,  67,  81 
Collecting,   53    f. ;   gradual    rise   of, 

262  f . ;  persistence  of,  267  f. 
CoLviN,  S.  S.,  147 
Combat  in  rivalry,  70  ff.    See  also 

Fighting. 
Combinations  of  original  tendencies, 

10,  93  f.,  19s  f- 
Conduction,   readiness   for,   125   ff . ; 

physiology  of,  222 
Confession,  98 
Confinement,  55 
Congruity,    Hobhouse's    theory    of. 

190  ff. 
CoNKUN,  quoted  by  Whitman,  239 
Connections.    See  Bonds. 
Connectors,  209 
Conscience,  202 
Consciousness,    in    angry    behavior, 

78  ff.;  original  tendencies  to,  170  f. 
Constructiveness,  138  f. 
Contempt,  responses  to,  89  f. 
Continuity  of  instincts,  237  ff. 
Control,  instinct  of  mental,  141  ff. 
Convergence  of  stimuli,  216  f.,  220 
CboLEV,  C.  H.,  37.  91.  103,  113.  130 
Cooing,  81,  135 
Cooperation,  100 
Counter-attack,  69 
Courtship,  73,  97  f. 
Ckaig,  W.,  159 
Crepidula,  239 
Crouching.  59,  120 
Cruelty,  103  flF. 
ai 


Crying,  74,  81,  91,  102,  135 
Curiosity,  140  f. 

Darkness,  and  fear,  61 

Darwin,  C,  49,  59,  76,  89,  160  flf., 
166,  208 

Dawson,  G-  E.,  250 

Dearborn,  G.  V.  N.,  27,  112 

Defects   in  original  nature,   277   ff. 

Delayed  original  tendencies,  physi- 
ology of,  228  f. ;  order  of  appear- 
ance of,  245  ff. ;  gradual  waxing 
of,  260  ff. 

Destructiveness,  138  f. 

Dickens,  quoted  by  Darwin,  78 

Discipline,  in  schools,  89  f. 

Discomfort.    See  Annoyers. 

Dislike,  confusion  of  with  fear,  58 

Display,  94,  95  f. 

Distance,   original   responses  to,  50 

Distribution  of  stimuli,  216  f.,  220 

Disuse,  172 

Domestic  service,  and  gregarious- 
ness,  88 

Domesticity,  55  f. 

Donaldson,  H.  H.,  229 

Dread,  confusion  of  with  fear,  57 

DuCHENNE,  quoted  by  Darwin,  161 

Eating,  50 

Edinger,  L.,  213,  218 

Effect,  law  of,  172  f. 

Effectors,  209 

Elements  of  original  tendencies, 
action  of,  10,  145  f.,  195  f. 

Emotional  tendencies  compared  with 
intellectual  in  value,  306  ff. 

Emotions,  original,  150  ff . ;  difficul- 
ties in  identifying,  150  ff . ;  inter- 
nal bodily  conditions  accompany- 
ing. 151;  as  means  of  connection 
and  representation.  153  f . ;  Mc- 
Dougall's  inventory  of,  154  ff. ; 
relation  of  to  e.xpressive  move- 
ments. 157  ff. 

Emulation,  98  ff. 

Engineers,  boyhood  interests  of,  300 


322 


INDEX 


Environment,  cooperation  of,  with 
original  nature,  2  f.,  39  f. 

Envy,   lOi 

Excess  movements,  137  f. 

Exercise,  law  of,  171  f. 

Experimentation,  instinct  of,   142 

Expression,  of  emotions,  157  ff. ; 
supposed  instinct  of,  158  f. 

Eye-movements  in  visual  explora- 
tion of  objects,  135  flf. 

Eyes,  covering  in  fear,  59;  flashing 
in  anger,  75,  tj\  lowering,  92,  95, 
96;  sparkling  in  laughter,  162 

Faculties,  alleged  formation  of  con- 
nections by,  174 

Falling,  responses  to,  49 

Fashion,  and  approval,  90 

Fatigue,  in  relation  to  the  principle 
of  readiness,  127  f. 

Fear,  57  ff. ;  ambiguity  of,  57  f. ; 
responses  in,  58  ff. ;  situations 
provoking,  60  ff. ;  specialization  of 
original  bonds  in,  66  ff. ;  gradual 
rise  of,  in  chicks,  263;  persistence 
of,  268 

Feeble-minded,  lack  of  intellectual 
interests  in,  300  f. 

Feeling-tone.  See  Satisfiers  and 
Annoyers. 

Fighting  instincts,  68  ff. ;  variety  of, 
68  ff. ;  in  relation  to  attempted 
mastery,  70  ff. ;  in  courtship,  jz ; 
in  response  to  being  thwarted,  73 
ff.;  value  of,  274  f.,  283  ff. 

Filial  instincts,  absence  of,  85 

FiSKE,  J.,  302  f. 

Flushing,  76 

Flynt,  J.,  55 

Fondling,  81,  91 

Ford,  J.  L.,  164 

FOREL,  A.,  98 

Fragments  of  original  tendencies, 
action  of,  10,  145  f.,  195  f. 

France,  C.  J.,  277 

Frowning,  ^^,  90 


Galton,  F.,  87,  97 

Gambling,  294 

Gard,  W.  L.,  63 

General  and  specific  original  ten- 
dencies compared  in  value,  306  ff. 

Germ-plasm  and  original  nature,  2, 
230 

Gesell,  a.  L.,  ioi 

Gilbert,  J.  A.,  262 

Grasping,  50,  52,  I35 

Gratiolet,  quoted  by  Darwin,  ^^ 

Greed,  102 

Gregariousness,  85  ff. 

Gross,  K.,  iio,  142,  208 

GuiLLET,  C.,  249  f.,  273,  280 

Habit-formation.    See  Learning. 

Habitation,  54  f. 

Haggerty,  M.  E.,  117 

Hair,  erection  of,  in  fear,  59 

Hall,  G.  S.,  28,  36,  yj,  57,  61,  64, 
75,  76,  96,  103,  163,  168,  169,  199. 
200,  202,  206,  208,  229,  234,  235, 
250,  251  f.,  256,  257,  271,  272  f., 
274,  275,  276,  279,  308,  309 

Hall,  W.  S.,  27,  63 

Head,  turning  in  fear,  59,  67;  cov- 
ering in  fear,  59,  67;  throwing 
back,  68;  erection  and  protrusion 
of,  92;  lowering,  92;  averting  in 
shyness,  95 

Heart-beat,  in  fear,  59 

Helpfulness,  106 

Henderson,   E.   N.,   13,  304 

Hiding,  59,  67 

High   places,   responses   to,  64  f. 

HiRN,  Y.,  140 

Hitting,  69,  7Z,  77 

Hoarding,  53  f. 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  185,  189 

Holmes,  S.  J.,  189  ff. 

Home,  55  ff. 

Homer,  quoted  by  Darwin,  77,  166 

Homesickness,  56  f. 

Homicide,  294 

Hooper,  quoted  by  Westermarck,  84 

Hooting,  90 


INDEX 


323 


HowiTT,  quoted  by  Westermarck,  83 
Hunting  instinct,  52,  104,  120,  267 

Ideals,  are  products  of  original 
tendencies,  310  ff. 

Ideas,  absent  from  original  situa- 
tions and  responses,  24 

Ideo-motor  action,  176  ff.;  evidence 
against,  181  ff. ;  and  moral  edu- 
cation, 289  S. 

Imitation,  108  flF.,  174  ff. ;  varieties 
of,  108  f. ;  absence  of  any  general 
faculty  of,  109  ff. ;  of  particular 
forms  of  behavior,  117  ff. ;  alleged 
formation  of  connections  by,  174 
ff. 

Immunization  by  early  indulgence, 
27s  ff. 

Imperfection  of  instincts,  48,  305 

Incubation,  genesis  of,  238  ff. 

Infallibility,  doctrine  of  nature's, 
271  ff. 

Infants,  responses  to  the  instinctive 
behavior  of,  81  ff. 

Inoculation,  theory  of  preventive 
mental,  275  ff. 

Instinct,  as  a  mythical  faculty,  11,  13 

Instincts,  defined,  5  f. ;  stages  in  the 
description  of,  11  ff. ;  of  self- 
preservation,  14  f. ;  James*  list  of, 
17  ff.;  criteria  of,  22  ff. ;  imper- 
fection of,  48,  305;  of  food-get- 
ting, protection,  flight  and  attack, 
50  ff. ;  social,  81  ff. ;  of  being  sat- 
isfied and  annoyed,  123  ff. ;  of 
vocalization,  visual  exploration 
and  manipulation,  135  ff. ;  of  curi- 
osity and  mental  control,  140  ff. ; 
of  play,  144  ff. ;  of  emotional  con- 
ditions, 150  ff. :  of  self-expression, 
158  f. ;  productive  of  learning.  171 
ff. ;  analomy  and  physiology  of, 
209  ff. ;  source  of.  230  ff. ;  order 
and  dates  of.  245  ff. ;  value  and 
use  of.  270  ff. ;  number  of.  in  rela- 
tion to  plasticity.  303  ff.  See 
also  Original  Tendencies. 


Intellect,  selection  for,  240  ff. 
Intellectual  instincts,  135  ff.,  306  ff. 
Interest,  educational  problem  of,  297 

ff. 
Interests,   123  ff.,  264  ff. 
Interference,  responses  to,  68  f. 
Inventories   of  original   tendencies, 

16  ff.,  41  f. 

James.  W.,  16,  20,  21,  22,  24,  37,  51, 
52,  54,  61,  63,  65,  68.  85,  87,  94, 
139.  151,  176,  178,  180,  182  ff.,  193, 
264  f.,  266,  303 

Jealousy.  loi 

Jennings,  H.  S.,  185  f.,  187.  192 

Johnston,  J.  B.,  217 

Jumping,  47,  64,  67 

Kant,  R,  165 

Kavlor,  M.  a.,  202 

Keatinge,  M.  W.,  290  f.,  29a 

Kent,  E.  B.,  300 

Keppel,  F.,  267 

Kicking  69,  73,  77 

KiDD,  D.,  8s 

Kindliness,  102  ff. ;  dangers  in,  283 

ff. 
Kinnaman,  a,  J.,  117 
KiRBV,  T.  H.,  289 
Kirkpatrick,  E.  a.,  37,  47,  60,  64, 

74,  83,  109,  no.  116.  140,  158,  20s 
Kline,  L.  W.,  55,  56,  ao8,  277 
kolliker,  a.,  210.  211,  213,  214 
Kropotkin,  p.  a.,  106 
Kuhlmann,  F.,  301 

Lacy,  quoted  by  Darwin,  78 

Ladd,  G.  T.,  126.  151 

Lancaster,  E.  G.,  29  ff. 

Language,  original  foundations  of, 
136 

Laughter,  103,  120.  160  ff. 

Lawyers,  boyhood  interests  of,  300 

Learning,    original    tendencies    pro-  , 
ductive  of,  171  ff. ;  limitations  to, 
^73   (',  by  imitation,   174  ff. ;   by 
ideo-motor  action,  176  ff.;  explan- 


324 


INDEX 


ations  of  by  the  law  of  exercise 

alone,  185  ff. ;  physiology  of,  222 

ff. ;  inheritance  of,  230  f. 
Leisure  classes  and  the  instinctive 

craving  for  objective  approval,  90 
V.  Lenhossek,  M.,  214,  223 
Lightning,  and  fear,  61 
LiNDLEY,  E.  H.,  142 
Lips,  retracted  in  anger,  78 
LoEB,  J.,  232 
Love  between  the  sexes,  97  f. 

McDouGALL,  W.,  23,  37,  61,  62,  65, 
68,  yz^  86,  91,  95,  112,  116,  117, 
121,  154  ff.,  176,  181,  283,  284  f. 

Manipulation,  135  ff. 

Marks,  use  of  in  schools,  286  ff. 

Marshall,  A.,  144 

Marshall,  H.  R.,  140,  226,  240 

Mastery,  92  f. 

Maternal  instinct,  81  ff. 

MeduUation,  and  delayed  instincts, 
229 

Memory,  192  ff. 

Meumann,  E.,  270  f. 

Migration,  55  ff. 

Miles,  C,  61 

Modifiability,    See  Learning. 

Modifiability  of  neurones,  222  f. 

Moll,  A.,  98 

Moore,  K.  C,  27,  49,  63,  112,  115 

Moral  education,  289  ff. 

Morality,  selection  for,  240  ff. 

Morgan,  C.  L.,  190,  202,  204 

Mosso,  A.,  57 

Motherly  behavior,  81  ff. 

Motives,  original  foundations  of, 
123  ff. 

Motor  ability,  development  of  with 
age,  261  f. 

Mouth,  opening  in  fear,  59;  posi- 
tion of,  in  anger,  yd',  position  of, 
in  laughter,  160  f. 

Movements,  original  control  of,  47 
ff. ;  of  neurones,  224  ff. 

Multiple  response,  7  ff.,  133  f.,  137, 
146  ff. 


Mysophobia,  specialization  of,  139 

Natural  selection,  and  the  origin  of 
instincts,  235  ff. ;  and  the  order 
of  appearance  and  disappearance 
of  instincts,  253  f. 

Natural  tendencies  versus  original 
tendencies,  293 

Nature's  infallibility,  doctrine  of, 
271  ff. 

Nestling,  59,  67,  81,  97 

Neurasthenia,  in  relation  to  the 
principle  of  readiness,   128 

Neurones,  action  of  in  satisfying- 
ness  and  annoyingness,  125  ff. ;  in 
emotional  responses,  150  ff.;  struc- 
ture of,  209  ff. ;  arrangement  of, 
212  ff. ;  action  of  in  sensitivity 
and  conductivity,  222;  action  of 
in  learning,  222  ff. 

Noises,  and  fear,  62 

Nudging,  92 

Number  of  instincts  in  man,  303  f. 

Nursing,  81  f. 

Obstacles,  responses  to,  69 
Opposition,  alleged  instinct  of,   loi 
Ordahl,  G.,  70,  99,  100,  159 
Order   of    appearance    of    delayed 
original    tendencies,    245    ff. ;    of 
disappearance    of   transitory   ten- 
dencies, 245  ff. 
Original  tendencies,   defined,   i   ff. ; 
names   for,  5  f. ;  components  of, 
6   ff. ;    action   of,   9   ff. ;    need   of 
exact  descriptions  of,  16  ff. ;  cri- 
teria   for    discovery    of,    22    ff. ; 
sources  of  information,  27  ff. ;  to 
sensitivity,  44  ff. ;  to  attentiveness, 
46  f. ;  of  gross  bodily  control,  47 
ff. ;    of    food-getting,    50    ff. ;    to 
hunt,  52  f. ;  to  collect  and  hoard, 

53  f . ;  to  avoid,  54 ;  to  seek  shelter, 

54  f. ;  to  be  annoyed  by  confine- 
ment, 55 ;  to  migration  and  do- 
mesticity, 55  ff. ;  to  fear,  57  ff. ; 
to  fighting,  68  ff. ;  to  anger,   76 


INDEX 


325 


ff. ;  to  respond  to  the  behavior  of 
other  human  beings,  81  ff. ;  pro- 
ductive of  so-called  imitation.  108 
ff. ;  to  be  satisfied  and  annoyed, 
123  ff. ;  to  vocalization,  visual  ex- 
ploration and  manipulation,  135 
ff. ;  to  curiosity  and  mental  con- 
trol, 140  ff. ;  to  play,  144  ff. ;  to 
random  movements,  146  ff. ;  to 
emotional  states,  150  ff. ;  to 
laughter,  160  ff. ;  to  consciousness, 
170  f. ;  productive  of  learning,  171 
ff. ;  productive  of  remembering, 
192  ff. ;  the  action  of  fragments 
and  combinations  of,  195  f. ;  in- 
dividual differences  in,  197;  mod- 
ifiability  of,  197  f. ;  scope  of,  199 
ff. ;  classification  of,  205  ff. ;  anat- 
omy and  physiology  of,  209  ff. ; 
source  of,  230  ff. ;  order  and  dates 
of,  24s  ff. ;  value  and  use  of,  270 
ff. ;  defects  in,  277  ff. ;  as  ends, 
286  ff. ;  as  means,  289  ff. ;  and 
natural  tendencies,  293  f. ;  number 
of  in  man,  303  ff. ;  relative  worth 
of,  306  ff. ;  the  ultimate  source  of 
all  values,  310  ff. 
Ownership,  102 

Pain,  irrational  response  to,  70;  and 

annoyingness,   124,    129 
Paleness,  59 
Paralysis,  59,  ^^ 
Paramecium,  12,  187 
Perez.  B.,  63.  74 
Permanence,  of  bonds,  193  f. 
Physiology,   of   original   tendencies, 

222   ff. ;   of  delay   and   transitori- 

ness,  226  f. 

PiLLSBURY,  W.   B.,    147 

Pity,  103 

Plasticity,  significance  of,  301   ff. 
Play.  144  ff. 

Pleasure,  not  synonymous  with  sat- 
isfyingness,  124;  at  being  a  cause, 

143 
Pointing,  51 


Possession,  51  f,  102 

Pouncing,  52 

Prever,  W.,  16,  27,  28,  63,  III 

Protozoa,  behavior  of  as  key  to  the 
action  of  the  neurones  in  learn- 
ing, 224  f. 

Protrusion,  of  lips,  lii;  of  tongue, 
112,  121 

Psychasthenia,  in  relation  to  the 
principle  of  readiness,  128 

Pugnacity.     See   Fighting. 

Pulling,  74,  97,  135 

Pushing,  69,  T*,,  74,  135 

Questionnaires,  use  of  in  the  study 
of  original  nature,  29  ff. 

Rage,  76  ff. 

Random  activity,  8  f. ;  movements, 
137  U  146  ff.,  274  f. 

Ratzel,  F.,  83 

Reaching,  50  f. 

Reaction,  varied.  See  Multiple  re- 
sponse. 

Readiness,  the  principle  of,   125  ff. 

Recapitulation  theory,  245  ff. ;  evi- 
dence for  and  against,  254  ff. 

Receptors.  209 

Recreation,  gregariousness  as  an  ele- 
ment  in,  86  ff. 

Reflexes,  defined,  5  f. ;  samples  of, 
16 

Rending,  52,  120 

Repulsion,  54 

Resolution.  Jennings'  law  6f,  186  f. 

Responses,  as  components  of  orig- 
inal tendencies,  6  ff. ;  need  of 
exact  description  of,  20  ff. ; 
classifications  of  original  ten- 
dencies by,  207  f.  See  also  Mul- 
tiple response.  For  descriptions 
of  specific  responses  see  under 
the  appropriate  original  ten- 
dency. 

Restraint,  escape  from.  68  f. 

Rivalry.  98  ff..  286  ff. 

Robinson,  L..  yj,  48.  66,  203 


326 


INDEX 


ROYCE,  J.,   lOI,   io8 
Running,  47,  52,  59,  67,  120 

Santayana,  G.,  309,  312 

Satisfiers,  original,  123  ff. ;  defined, 
123  f.;  listed,  124;  explicable  only 
by  cerebral  physiology,  125  ff. ; 
and  the  principles  of  readiness 
and  unreadiness,  127  ff. ;  function 
of,  in  learning,  172  f. ;  importance 
of,  295  ff. ;  relation  to  doctrines 
of  interest,  297  ff. ;  relation  to  in- 
dividual differences,  299  ff. 

Saunders,  F.  H.,  103 

Schneider,  G.  H.,  16,  52,  53,  78,  249, 
272,  273 

Schopenhauer,  A.,  165 

School  work,  and  gregariousness, 
88;  and  the  approval-scorn  series, 
89  f. ;  and  rivalry,  286  ff. 

Scorn,  responses  to,  89  f. ;  responses 
by,  90  f. 

Scott,  quoted  by  Darwin,  'J^ 

Scratching,  69,  ^^,  135 

Screaming,  59,  81 

Secretiveness,  98 

Selection,  for  intellectual  and  moral 
superiority,  240  ff.  See  also  Nat- 
ural Selection. 

Selective  fallacy  in  questionnaire 
reports,  33  ff. 

Self-consciousness,  96  f. 

Sensory  capacities,  44  ff.,  222 

Sex  behavior,  97  f. 

Sex  differences  in  mastery  and  sub- 
mission, 93;  in  interests,  299  f. 

Shakespeare,    quoted   by    Darwin, 

77  f. 
Sherrington,  C.  S.,  174 
Shinn,  M.  W.,  27,  63,  142 
Shivering,  59 
Shouting,  90,  120,  135 
Shoving,  92 
Shuddering,  59 
Shyness,  94  f. 
SissoN,  E.  O.,  289 
Situations,  as  components  of  orig- 


inal tendencies,  6  ff. ;  need  of 
exact  description  of,  20  ff. ;  clas- 
sification of  original  tendencies 
by,  206  f.  For  the  situations  in 
specific  original  tendencies,  see 
under  the  name  of  the  tendency. 
Skill,  original  foundations  of,  47  ff., 

135  ff. 
Slavish  instincts,  97 
Slaughter,  J.  W.,  250 
Sleeplessness,  in  pity,  103 
Smiling,  81,  90,  91,  103,  120,  i6x  ff. 
Smith,  S.,  185,  187  ff.,  192 
Smith,  T.  L.,  96 
Sneering,  90 
Social  instincts,  81  ff. 
Sociology,  as  a  source  of  knowledge 

of  original  tendencies,  38 
Solitude,  63  f.,  85  f. 
Sounds,  imitation  of,  113  ff. ;  made 

in     laughing,     163     f.    See    also 

Noises. 
Source  of  original  tendencies,  230  ff. 
Sources  of  information  concerning 

original  tendencies,  27  ff. 
Specialization,  of  bonds,  in  fear,  66 

ff. ;  in  fighting,  68  ff. 
Spencer,  H.,  165 
Spitting,  78 

Stages  of  thought  in  the  explana- 
tion of  behavior,  li  ff. 
Stanley,  H.  M.,  62 
Staring,  90,  92 
Starting,  59,  67,  81 
Stiffening,  68 
Stout,  G.  F.,  iio 

Strangeness,  and  fear,  60  ff.,  65  f. 
Submission,  92  f. 
Suggestion,  use  of  in  schools,  289 

ff. 
Sully,  J.,  62,  168  f.,  208 
Supernatural,  fear  of,  65 
Sutherland,  A.,  106,  241  ff. 
Sweating,  59 
Sympathetic  induction  of  emotions, 

McDougall's  view  of,  117  f. 
Sympathy,  102  ff. 


INDEX 


327 


Synapses,  316  flP. ;  intimacy  of,  221 

Tapping,  261  f. 

Tarde,  G.,  108 

Tastes,  responses  to,  50 

Teasing,  103  f.,  275  f. 

Teeth,  clenched  in  anger,  ^^ 

Tennyson,  quoted  by  Darwin,  76 

Theft,  277,  294 

Thomas,  P.  R,  289,  290 

Thomson,  J.  A.,  231 

Thorndike,  E.  L.,  134,  227,  263 

Thunder,  61 

Thwarting    of    original    tendencies, 

Tickling,  166  ff. 

Tormenting,  103  f. 

Tracy,  R,  iio 

Tramps,  and  the  migratory  instinct, 

55 

Transmission  of  acquired  trails,  231 
ff. 

Transitoriness,  of  original  tenden- 
cies. 39  f.,  228  f.,  24s  ff.,  264  ff. 

Trembling,  59 

Trettien,  a.  W.,  47 

Triplett,  N.,  100 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  quoted  by  Sutherland, 
106 

Universality,  as  a  criterion  of  un- 
Icarnedness,  22,  23 

Unreadiness  of  conduction  units  to 
conduct,  126  ff. 

Use,  law  of.  171  f. ;  of  original  ten- 
dencies, 270  ff. 


Utility  theory  of  the  order  of  orig- 
inal tendencies,  252  ff. ;  evidence 
for,  258  f. 

Value  of  original  tendencies,  270  ff. 

Van  Gehuchten,  A.,  210,  214,  215. 
216,  218,  219,  223 

Variability  of  men  in  original  ten- 
dencies, 197 

Varied  reaction.  See  Multiple  re- 
sponse. 

Veblen,  T.,  go,  143 

Veniaminof,  quoted  by  Wester- 
marck.  84 

Visual  exploration.  135  ff. 

Vocalization,  135  ff. 

VoN  Baer,  quoted  by  Guillet,  240 

Walking,  47 

Wants,  original  foundations  of,  '23 

ff. 
Washburn,  M.  R,  179 
Water,  original  responses  to,  202  ff. 
Watson,  J.  B.,  117.  229 
Westermarck,  E.,  83 
Whitman,  C.  O.,  238  f. 
Wind,  responses  to,  63 
WooDwoRTH.  R.  S.,  47,  126,  151 
Workmanship,  Veblen's  instinct  of, 

143  f- 
Writhing,  68,  74 
WuNDT,  W.,  177,  234  f, 

Ziehen,  Th.,  128 


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